


Beasts Prowl in Darkness

by Korvesta_Kaakkoon



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Corvo can turn into a giant raven, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vampires, Werewolves, also some animals get eaten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 56,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Korvesta_Kaakkoon/pseuds/Korvesta_Kaakkoon
Summary: In a world, where beasts roam the misty lower streets of Dunwall, Corvo Attano has been left for dead. The church warned him not to make deals with witches, but the Outsider’s offer is something he cannot afford to refuse.With a beating heart of another in his chest, Corvo takes flight. He needs to find his daughter, before the beast inside him takes over completely.
Relationships: Corvo Attano & Daud, Corvo Attano & Emily Kaldwin, Corvo Attano & Teague Martin, Corvo Attano & The Heart, Corvo Attano & The Outsider, Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin (past)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 67





	1. Left for Dead – The Outsider's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> It’s basically a retelling of the first Dishonored game, but with vampires, werewolves and such thrown into the mix. The city of Dunwall is a little different too, with altered mythology to back up the new creatures, but not a lot has really changed. Corvo still wants to find Emily and get her to safety.

Corvo hit the ground hard, slamming against the cobblestones with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs. He could feel his ribs fracturing further and his vision went dark when the back of his head cracked against the cold ground. A weak groan crawled out of his throat and he curled to his side, though it did little to lessen the pain. 

A dull ache gave way to something more pressing, searing through him like a fire. For a moment Corvo felt like he couldn’t breathe. When he tried, the pain doubled, leaving him hacking and coughing weakly on the ground. 

Far above him, the watchmen shined their light over the railings at his crumpled form. 

“I can see him!” one of them shouted. “He’s not moving!”

Corvo squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. 

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“It’s not worth it,” an officer said, his voice echoing from the walls of the abandoned buildings. Corvo could hear the contempt in his voice. “He’s as good as dead. Let the weepers have him.”

Somewhere further away, a bell was rung. The light disappeared as the watchmen left, plunging the Lower District into darkness. 

Corvo’s breathing was ragged in his own ears. It was the only sound he could hear and it sounded thunderous to him. With every haggard breath he took, he could feel his lungs bubbling. Haziness refused to leave his eyes, no matter how heavy the tears running down them was. He tried to push against the ground only to have his arms give out under him. 

He blinked. Reached for his arm. 

He could see bone poking through the flesh. 

Bile rose to his mouth. 

Six months in Coldridge. Only to escape to this. 

He could hear shambling steps somewhere close by. Something was moving about just beyond the edges of his vision. Corvo could hear their breathing, just as heavy and labored as his own. Quiet moans of misery reached his ears over the wet sounds of his own lungs. 

The watchman had been right. 

Corvo was as good as dead. 

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth together. Outsider curse it. For one moment, he’d thought he could – 

He’d thought wrong. All the ideas of escaping and finding revenge for what had happened washed off. He was dying at the very bottom of Dunwall, in the abandoned Lower District, where only weepers, beasts and Hunters roamed. The empty buildings rose around him, foreboding and decrepit. No one would come to his aid here. Decent folk lived higher up, safely out of the reach of the mist. 

The only people left here had died long ago. The people here moved only because the mist in their veins kept them upright even as their flesh decayed from their bones. 

The first weeper appeared at the end of the street. Corvo could barely make out its pale form against the dark background. A watchman had managed to cut across his brow during his escape. It had damn near taken his whole head with it. Now the blood had ran dry and blinded his right eye. Not that the left one was doing much better. Grime and rheum turned everything fuzzy. But he knew what weepers were. He’d seen them before. 

The rotting smell of the living dead was hardly worse than the stench of Coldridge on his skin. 

They’d quarantined the Lower District to keep the weeper threat from spreading, when the mists had grown thicker. Only until they’d find a way to put them to rest. 

They would never find a way to do that. Not after Jessamine.

Corvo squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Try as he might to swallow down the whimpers, they escaped his throat anyway, weak and pathetic. It was the only sound he was capable of as his death stumbled closer. 

Two, three, maybe more weepers had now sensed the fresh meat that had fallen down to their domain. It must’ve been nice to get something fresh enough to still wriggle every now and then. These days most of the people ending down here were already dead. 

Although, maybe with Corvo, it’d be hard to tell the difference anyway.

They drew closer and their ragged breathing rivaled even the noises coming out of Corvo’s failing lungs. He wasn’t going to fight it. It wasn’t like he could even if he’d wanted to. 

He probably wouldn’t have made it far even if he hadn’t fallen over the railing. Not with the cold shivers running through his skin and the liquid slowly drowning him from the inside. 

Maybe it was better to die here. At least it was on his own terms. Out of the reach of the Viceroy and the Bishop. 

The weeper closest to him let out a low wail. It drew the attention of the others. 

And suddenly, the shuffling and moaning had ceased. 

Corvo blinked blearily at the sudden silence. He could hear rail cars riding over him somewhere several districts above. And after that, a ringing silence. His vision swam, his eye wouldn’t focus enough for him to be sure, but it looked like the weepers had suddenly just… disappeared. 

There was mist in the air. Dark haze drew in from the direction of the ports, carrying with it the murmur of waves. There hadn’t been any ships in the port for months now. Not after the weepers had taken over the docks. 

Was this what the church had been talking about? Death coming from the sea to claim a sinner’s soul? The mist carrying lost souls to the deep for the Outsider to devour?

Corvo would’ve never called himself a saint. But the crimes the church and the Viceroy accused him of were not his. 

Over the deafening sound of his own breathing, Corvo could just barely pick out quiet steps approaching him. Wooden soles on cobblestone, a light walker on an evening stroll in a dead district. He drew his lungs as full as they would go and was only rewarded with wet coughs that reverberated through his broken ribs. He didn’t have strength to try to escape. 

If it was a Hunter, maybe they would find it in their heart to end his suffering for him. 

Corvo felt the presence more than he saw it. A shadow fell over him. He struggled to keep his eye open, but it did him little good. 

“My dear Corvo,” the stranger said, his voice smooth and flat. “Your life has taken a turn, has it not?”

Corvo tried to blink the grime and blood out of his eyes. Tears flowed, but his vision remained unfocused. His throat constricted when he swallowed down bile. 

He didn’t recognize the speaker from his voice alone, but clearly the stranger recognized him. Not that it was a feat well worth mentioning. Rare was the person in Dunwall, who wouldn’t have recognized the disgraced former bodyguard of the Empress, the _Lord Protector_ who’d failed to do his only job. Even though his current state might’ve made him a little more difficult to recognize, he’d still been a known face before. 

The image of Viceroy Burrows flashed before his eyes, flitting over the blurry form of the stranger. Corvo bared his teeth, snarling. 

The stranger remained unmoving and uncaring of his struggles. He was dressed in dark clothing and on his back, he wore a heavy cloak. His face was pale against the backdrop of the city and the hair framing it disappeared to the darkness around him. In the weak lighting of the Lower District, his eyes looked almost black. 

He looked like the Outsider himself, come to claim his soul. 

“Your dearest Empress killed and lies resting upon your shoulders,” the stranger continued, wholly unaffected by Corvo’s state. “You’ve escaped your captors, but now you lie here dying.”

Corvo gritted his teeth and tried to push up. The pain was blinding, forcing a ragged howl out of his throat. He rested his head against the freezing cobblestones, shuddering in agony. 

“To them, you are already dead,” the stranger said. “Forgotten and buried. You might as well lie back down and let the cold reclaim you.”

Hell. Maybe it was the Outsider. He certainly spoke like the strictures. Corvo’s breathing was getting shallow. What was a one last curse on his name? One last mockery for the life he’d lived? A bodyguard, who’d let their charge die, was no better than the lowest sinners of Dunwall. 

“It’s a pity,” the stranger said, not sounding pitying in the least. “The loss of the Empress will affect this city in ways that the Viceroy hadn’t planned. But a man like him knows no shame. He will not know to take responsibility. He will die unpunished, cursing the actions of others, but never his own, even as the curse he evoked kills his people.”

Corvo pushed against the cobblestones, slower this time. The stranger watched him without a comment for a moment, head tilted to the side. 

“And,” he said. “The daughter of the Empress. Lost. Alone. In the hands of people, who care very little for her. A pawn in the game of adults. She too will die, before this is over.”

Corvo snarled again, hands squeezing into fists on the ground. The taste of blood grew stronger in his mouth, trickles running down to his chin. 

The stranger took half a step back and knelt down next to him. The smell of the mist filled his nostrils. It was a stuffy, cold, decaying stench of death and it surrounded the entirety of the Lower District. Corvo blinked again, his vision growing steadier, the haze falling somewhat. 

“But you,” the man continued. “You are a variable I can’t yet quantify. What sort of a man are you, Corvo Attano?”

Corvo didn’t have answers for him. He wouldn’t have been able to give them even if he’d had them. It didn’t look like the stranger was expecting a response out of him anyway. He just studied Corvo with his dark, dark eyes. 

“I want to give you a gift,” he said. “It would be a waste to see you die here. Quite boring. Do you want to live, Corvo?”

Did he? Was there anything left in this world for him? Hadn’t everything already been taken from him? It would’ve been so easy to refuse. To shake his head and shove the strange man aside. There was nothing he could do to save Corvo now anyway. If the weepers didn’t get him, his own body would. Whatever he did, would only prolong the inevitable. 

But. He. He couldn’t die here. He _couldn’t._

Emily was still out there, somewhere. Alone. The thought set Corvo’s teeth on edge. He’d failed her. He’d failed her mother. Jessamine he could no longer help, but Emily was still out there. 

He forced himself upright through the pain, swaying on his knees. 

“Do you want to live, Corvo?” the stranger asked again, quieter this time. “I warn you. My gifts do not come without a price.”

Around these days, rare were gifts without ulterior motives hiding behind them. He doubted the man could really do anything to help him anyway, but Corvo would much rather die in a warm bed than being torn to pieces by the weepers here. He nodded, the only response he was capable of at the moment. 

A hand shot forward, grabbing onto his chin and pulling him up. The vice-like grip on his face was as cold as the sea itself. Corvo’s head was forcibly yanked upward and he came face to face with pitch black eyes. 

His stomach dropped. 

The man in front of him didn’t merely resemble the Ancient Evil in his appearance and speech. 

The man in front of him _was_ the Ancient Evil. 

The weight of the deal he’d just made settled down at the very pit of his stomach. Don’t make deals with witches, the church had warned. They always turn on you and spread suffering further. And the worst of the worst was the Father of the Beasts himself. The Outsider. 

His gifts never were far from curses. 

The Outsider opened his mouth and the light from districts above reflected from a pair of long, sharp fangs. The Outsider studied him for a moment and let the situation sink in. Corvo struggled a little, a hand landing on the one holding him. 

His head was forced as back as it would go and the teeth sank to his throat. 

The pain lasted only for a fleeting second and was little compared to the agony his body had already been in. What followed was a numbness that spread over him as his blood was being drained. What little remained of his strength was being sapped away and he would’ve fallen to the ground, had the Outsider not held his face in his steely grip. 

When the Outsider pulled back, Corvo’s blood covered his lips. 

“Such potential,” he said and lowered Corvo back to the ground. “It’s such a shame.”

What did he mean? Corvo’s pain was fading, but as it went, if left behind a cold. 

He was dying, he realized. 

The Outsider drew back his sleeve, revealing pallid, white skin. He bit down onto his own flesh, dark liquid trickling down. It mixed with the remnants of Corvo’s blood. 

The air smelled like burnt oil. 

“I hope you’ll survive,” the Outsider said, grabbing onto the front of Corvo’s shirt and pulling him back up. 

When the Outsider’s blood landed on his lips, Corvo had already grown too numb to flinch. The taste of the blood was bitter and horrid. It tasted like liquified death and Corvo couldn’t pull away. 

He wouldn’t have, even if he could’ve. 

His head was filling with cotton. The taste died on his tongue. 

The Outsider pulled back and lifted Corvo’s face with his hand. 

“Find me at the rooftops,” he said. “I have one more gift to give you. If you survive, it’s yours.”

And then he let go of Corvo completely, dropping him to the ground like a puppet with its string cut. He removed the cloak from his shoulders and let it fall over Corvo. 

“If you need help,” he said, his voice distant through crashing waves, “find Granny Rags. But be careful. She’s more dangerous than she appears.”

It was the last thing Corvo heard, before blacking out.

*

The smell of death. Groaning and moaning voices nearby. The stone underneath was freezing cold.

Large, black wings unfurled. They lashed down against the ground with powerful strikes, sending decaying flesh scattering around him. The night sky was open beyond the metal rails and crumbling rooftops. Ground disappeared from beneath scaly feet. 

The sky was vast. The sky was endless. 

He was free. 

Cries of surprise grew distant, buildings turning miniscule in his eyes. The ground couldn’t hold him in its shackles. Not, when the stars were calling for him. 

He was free! _Free!_

At the height of his ascent, pain shot through him. An unfamiliar feeling of wrongness. 

This wasn’t right. These weren’t his wings. This wasn’t his beak. This wasn’t his body!

The panic surfaced quick, and the instincts were pushed down by its weight. 

What was he doing? How was he moving? 

Something was terribly wrong here.

Gravity reached for him, grabbing hold of his mangled form and started to pull him back down. The fall was spiraling. His limbs moved wrong, his arms were – He had no arms, they were trapped, this was wrong, _this was wrong!_ He saw the tallest towers of the Imperial District fall past him as the ground grew closer. He saw people, watchmen out during their nightly strolls, dive out of the way, frightened yells and half-formed prayers escaping their mouths. 

Everything was wrong. His vision was wrong, the scale of the city wasn’t right and the weight of his own body was too light. The ground was approaching fast and he couldn’t focus enough on righting his fall. He fell past the Towering District and the Commons, back towards the Lower District he’d climbed out of. 

On the very last moment, he threw open the wings that were not his and turned the downward spiral into a glide. 

The feathers on his stomach brushed the grimy cobblestones as he slid through the district. Angling his wings, he managed to lift his beak up to another rise, but his speed was quickly dwindling. He tried to move his wings, but the air caught them wrong and his flight was thrown off course. He stumbled, hit a wall and landed with a loud crash on old ventilation piping. 

For a moment, there was quiet. His heart was beating panicked and light. His chest rose and fell in time with his shallow breathing and it felt _wrong_. Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Below him, there was moaning and shuffling. Pitiful crying and wheezing. He turned himself upright, a strange pair of clawed feet under him. The weepers drew closer, but couldn’t reach him, and their cries filled the streets, flies buzzing out of their mouths. 

His memories came back to him, slow. 

His name was Corvo Attano. And he was… He had been the Royal Protector to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. 

And he…

He had failed. 

The feeling rose again. An instinct just beneath his skin. _Freedom!_ The sky was calling. The grime couldn’t reach him there, if he flew high enough. If he took flight now, he’d never have to land again. He could get lost in the sky, fly over the sea and never look back.

He could already feel the wind beneath his wings. The sea was singing. His thoughts grew distant. Hazy, like they weren’t his thoughts at all, but someone whispering them to his mind. He felt a hunger that was like homesickness. He hadn’t felt like this for a long time. If he took flight now, he could reach Serkonos in days. No, no, sooner than that. His wings would carry him, the winds promised. 

_Freedom._

He spread his wings, beating down against the still air. His body was large, but light, and it rose slowly. The weepers cried out for him, but couldn’t hope to touch him. 

He would soar like a bird, fly to the stars never to return, and – 

A scream pierced the air. It wasn’t like the weeping and wheezing of the walking dead. It was the fresh, terrified scream of a living being. Like a splash of cold water, it woke Corvo up and he stumbled on his wings. It had come close by. He landed back on the piping. 

It wasn’t any of his business. He knew. But before he could think twice about it, he’d already started beating his wings again. 

It was different without the instinct. He didn’t fully know how this new body of his worked. He’d seen birds take flight a million times before and never thought twice about it. He had to think through every movement, his tail feathers, his wings, the new shape of his body. The wings weren’t his arms exactly. They didn’t feel like they were, at least. It almost felt like he was hugging his arms against his chest, trapped under a straightjacket, and the limbs on his back were something completely new. He was clumsy and swung from side, but didn’t fall to the ground completely. 

Another scream rang through the district, followed by sobbing. 

“Please! Somebody! Help me,” she cried. 

Her fall had been more graceful than Corvo’s, it seemed. The woman had fallen on top of an old awning instead of the cold stone, and somehow the fabric had held her weight. Her arm was broken by the look of it, clutched to her chest, but otherwise she looked no worse for wear.

The hounds had found her first. Abandoned pet dogs that the mists and hunger had warped into something else completely. They were snapping their maws at her, jumping and howling, but unable to reach her from her height. 

She was safe from them, but trapped. 

When the instinct snaked itself around Corvo’s mind, he let it. His wings grew steadier beneath him, striking down with power. He was surprised, at the far end of his mind where he’d receded to, when the gust of wind sent the hounds stumbling. His wings created blasts that threw the wild animals off their feet. They scrambled to run, but Corvo was faster. He landed on one of them. Something that had once been a hound crunched under his feet and he only now became dimly aware of his sheer size. He was larger than the hound, like a great beast. His sharp beak rose, then fell and ripped into the flesh beneath. 

The blood was bitter. It tasted like death itself and Corvo drank it up like a man dying of thirst. The hound twitched for a moment, before growing still, its naked skull hitting the cobblestones. 

The great beast devoured. 

Corvo became aware of the weeping only in bits and pieces. As he attempted to drink the blood of the hound with a beak not made for drinking, his senses returned to him slowly. He came to realize that he was standing on the corpse of an animal, ripping the dead creature to pieces. 

A taste of bile filled his mouth as his consciousness returned to him. 

He fell back, a strangled croak escaping his beak. 

The woman sat hunched on the awning and cried. 

Corvo felt like throwing up. His entire body shook. 

He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this body. He wanted out. _Now!_

There was an itch in his skin. A wrongness. He had no hands, so he used his beak, reaching behind his back and grabbing a mouthful of feathers. Then he yanked hard and pain had his eyes watering. 

Feathers fell, but his form remained. 

The second croak was louder, more hysterical. 

More memories flooded in. The Outsider. The gift. _The curse_. He flailed. 

“ _Do you want to live?_ ” he’d asked, but this wasn’t what Corvo had thought it was going to be like. 

He’d heard tales of the beasts lurking in the mists. He hadn’t thought them to be more than old wives’ tales and stories told by the church to keep the masses cowed. But then the wolves had scaled the sides of the Dunwall Tower and their leader had sunk his teeth to Jessamine’s throat. He’d had no other choice than to believe then. 

And now here he was, trapped in a body that wasn’t his. 

He knew some beasts could transform. Witches and shifters, personifications of the Outsider’s evil, the church said. But the body wouldn’t change. He was trapped! His arms were gone. He couldn’t touch his face, he couldn’t straighten his back, he couldn’t hunch down right. Everything felt wrong and his breath caught in his throat. 

He would’ve cried right beside the woman, had he been able to. 

Was he never going to be able to shift back into his human form?

He cried out. 

“P- please,” the woman sobbed. “Help… me…”

Corvo pressed his head against the ground. His eyes were blacking out. He needed to… He had to…

The Outsider had…

The instinct was a malicious one. _Fly_ , it seemed to say. _Freedom._

He looked up and at the woman. 

_Hunger_ , it said. 

Corvo gasped and pushed it down. He forced the idea of blood off his tongue. A tangy taste. Fresh and warm. Better alive than dead. Better human than animal. He forced them down, closing his eyes. 

He needed to get out of here. He couldn’t remain in this stench of death and blood. He rose to his wings and flew off. 

It was starting to come more naturally to him. It was like the ability to fly had been recorded into his backbone. He didn’t fully understand it, but if he stopped thinking about it and let the beast do as it pleased, he knew how to remain airborne. 

He stayed close to the ground for now. High enough so he wouldn’t hit the wandering weepers, but low enough so he wouldn’t be seen from Commons. 

How had it come to this? How had he ended up in this situation?

The journey had been long and arduous, starting with the mists growing heavier than usual and the dead rising from their graves. The Lower District had been swarmed in a matter of months and The Commons and Towering Districts had been flooded with the poor dock workers and inhabitants of the Lower District running from the threat. 

Jessamine had been trying to find a solution. She’d promised to protect her people and Corvo had taken her word for it. He always would’ve. She’d had a heart filled with love. She’d cared for her people. 

It hadn’t protected her, when the beasts had come crawling from the mist, though. 

Corvo would never forget the sight of the man dressed in the red coat of a Hunter. There’d been very little humanity left in his features, his wolves hungry and their maws snapping. 

He knew the Spymaster was to blame. Viceroy now, he supposed. Hiram Burrows had always been a bit too ambitious for Corvo’s liking. And now instead of the blue and gold swan banners flying in the wind, Burrows’ red and black griffin had taken their place. 

Now the thought of the man set a strong pang of hunger in his stomach. 

Corvo beat his wings harder, his speed growing faster. The scenery turned into a blur around him. 

“ _Find me at the rooftops_ ,” the Outsider had said. 

Corvo wasn’t sure if he wanted any gifts from a creature like that. But then again, where else was he going to find the answers he was looking for?

He’d mentioned Granny Rags as well. 

The name sent shivers through his body. 

He’d heard the servants whisper about her every now and then. The kitchen staff told stories to their children about the old witch to keep them on their best behavior. The old granny, who lived in the Lower District and cooked naughty little children into stew and whose rats told her secrets. 

Another figure of stories Corvo hadn’t thought real enough to actually exist. 

But if the Outsider existed and spoke of her, then that must’ve meant she existed as well. 

Find her, he’d said. If you need help. 

Corvo was lost and confused. His body was foreign to him and he didn’t understand anything. 

He needed help. 

But where to find a witch? The ones that still remained, were only alive, because they were good enough at hiding to avoid curious eyes. The church had been brutal in their hunt after the outbreak, strengthening their stranglehold on Dunwall despite Jessamine’s best attempts. 

Granny Rags. The Lady of Rats. The Witch of the Lower District. 

Corvo slowed down into a glide and landed on an old lamppost. 

Would an Outsider’s witch survive in the Lower District, with the weepers and mist-born creatures wandering free? If the stories were true, then probably. This should be a place where they thrived. 

The Lady of Rats. 

Corvo rose back to his wings. 

If the tales were true, he needed to find him a rat

The rats in the Lower District were a different breed from the ones living above. Maybe once they’d been the same, but the mists from the sea could never quite reach the districts above, leaving the rats up above unchanged. Down here the vermin were bigger, meaner, more aggressive and less likely to be shooed away by a simple broom. Corvo had seen a pack of them rip a hound to shreds in a matter of seconds. 

Corvo feared what a roaming pack might do to a human, if they found one. 

His thoughts returned back to the woman he’d left behind. 

Cold shivers ran down his spine. 

The district closest to the ground was dark and lightless. There were no people left to fill the lamps with oil, so at night the only source of light was what shined down from Commons, the district above. In the early hours of the morning, a mist rolled over from the sea. It covered every last inch of the abandoned streets. Corvo could remember watching it high above from Imperial District. It made it look like Dunwall started from Commons, like the sea had swallowed the Lower District completely. 

Now that he was here, the mist was as thick as stew. It was nearly impossible to see anything in it. The lights from above weren’t enough to break through it. Corvo tried to listen carefully to the noises around him, but even those got muffled by the mists. All his senses were being numbed down. He could hear strange noises in the dark. Beasts moving about in their search for their next meal, but it was impossible to tell how close the sounds were coming from. Flying over the streets, he kept one wing brushing against the building walls at all times so he wouldn’t be crashing against anything, but it was hardly enough to make him confident in his path. 

He croaked in frustration and found a perch to land on. A dilapidated building whose roof had caved down some time ago. He sat on top of the remaining wall and watched the streets below with a feeling of dread. 

The situation was all kinds of messed up. He was habiting a body he could hardly control and felt foreign to him while trying to navigate unfamiliar streets with no sight. And what he was trying to find in the darkness was a small, furry creature. 

He wasn’t going to get anything done like this. 

Should he go ahead and try to find the Outsider instead? Push past the other districts and try to reach the sky?

And allow the Hunters to catch a sight of him when he inevitably fumbled?

He’d already gambled with his life, when he’d first taken flight. The watchmen had seen him and would no doubt report a sighting of a new, terrifying beast breaching the borders of the upper districts. The quarantine had held most of the creatures hiding down here at bay, but something capable of flight would be much harder to contain. 

They’d be coming for him with silver bullets and nets. He’d be cut to pieces and sold as lucky charms on black market before he could even try to find Emily. 

He needed to regain his bearings before he could try flying over the edges of the mist. 

It frustrated him beyond belief. His claws curled around the wall, pieces crumbling off and dropping down. 

It’d been ages since he’d felt this uncertain. 

Something was skittering in the night. Corvo could hear it close by, but craning his neck to look around, he couldn’t see much further than the length of his beak. He squinted and tried to see better, but it did him little good. 

He blinked. 

And nearly fell off his perch, when his vision turned sepia. 

The world around him had gained a new tint. The early morning greyness had turned warmer in tone and it was as if the mist itself had disappeared completely. All that was left was the discolored version of the broken part of the city, like an old silvergraph, tinted by age. 

And there, near a pile of trash dropped from the districts above, sat a glowing, living being. 

A rat. 

In the dead world around it, the rat glowed with the force of life. Like a tiny flame, it flickered and moved around. It was a large creature, nearly the size of a cat and wholly uncaring of the beast above it. 

It was so alive. 

Corvo felt the instinct flaring. He could nearly taste the blood on his tongue already. 

_Hunger! Food! Blood! Alive!_

He rose to his wings before he could even think twice about it. The rat had barely enough time to lift its head, when Corvo had already snatched it into his claws. He was about to throw the furry little critter down his beak when he realized what he was doing and stilled. 

_Hungry! Want. Flesh. Blood._

He swallowed empty air and clawed the talons on his free foot to the cobblestones. 

No. He wasn’t going to eat the rat!

The hound had been disgusting enough. 

It squirmed and fought in his hold, attempting to bite at his scaly foot. Corvo pressed it against the ground harder and it grew still, looking at him with its beady eyes. Its tiny chest rose and fell in fear and its whiskers twitched. 

He couldn’t speak, not with a beak and a tongue that didn’t bend right. He doubted the rat would understand him anyway. Stories were stories. He didn’t yet know what to believe. 

So, Corvo let go of the rat and hopped back. The little critter righted itself and shook its scraggly fur. 

He waited a moment to see what would happen. Instead of immediately running off, the rat started cleaning itself. It righted its fur and brushed at its whiskers before turning and taking a few steps. 

Corvo was about to capture it again, when it stopped and turned to look at him. 

Lady of Rats. 

There was intelligence in those black little eyes and it sent cold shivers running up Corvo’s spine. 

The rat turned back around and started running. Corvo rose to his wings and followed after it. 

It led him through the abandoned streets of the Lower District. Past old shops and apartment buildings. Through empty markets. The weepers cared little about them, too busy digging through the trash to look up. Corvo was as good as invisible to them now. 

Running past a rail car storage, two more rats joined the first one, both of them glowing with just as much life as the first. The fourth appeared out of an alleyway. The fifth and sixth had been ripping to pieces some poor animal they’d found. 

Before long, Corvo had lost count of the critters. He was following a hairy, glowing mat of tiny beasts and it made his stomach churn. 

Even the priests would’ve cursed at the sight. This was not normal. He was damn well sure of that. 

Which must’ve meant that he was doing something right. 

It did not sit well with him, though. 

The rats led him to a house near the port. Even the ships had been abandoned after the Lower District had been quarantined. Only the unlucky few ships that had been caught in the attacks remained. It wasn’t safe for anyone else to approach Dunwall from the sea anymore. The dockworkers had been the first ones to go, so the waterfront had been left without people. 

Corvo was caught by the sight of the rising sun over the water. The mist was drawing back and the water sparkled like it’d never done before. 

Without the people around, the waters were clearer and cleaner. The port was no longer filled with the noises of life or the smell of fish. No ships were spewing smoke. 

And because of that, Dunwall was dying. 

The house was only a few hundred meters away from the shoreline, with a nice view to the waterfront. For a Lower District home, it’d been idyllic and pleasant, with beautifully carved friezes. Now, though, the windows had been boarded shut and trash had piled on the doorway. 

Despite this, the door had been left open, and the rats, dozens and dozens of them now, rushed in. 

Corvo landed on the ground outside and hesitated. 

Was he supposed to knock in a situation like this?

How should one address a witch? The church’s only advice had been to do it with a pistol in hand, a silver bullet at ready. 

Corvo very much doubted that would do him any good in a situation like this. 

He blinked, his sight shifting back to sepia. The warm glow of living beings was lighting up the inside of the house like it was on fire. The rats were scuttling on the ground, forming a circle around a lone woman, who was moving about as if she was having a lively conversation with someone. Corvo could see no one else other than her in there, though. The rats kept watch over her, but the woman seemed to care little about her companions. 

Corvo ruffled his feathers, then caught himself doing the strange motion. He pushed down the uncertainty and stepped in over the doorstep. 

The woman was standing in the middle of the decrepit room and rubbing her hands together as she babbled. The rats surrounded her like a tiny audience, filling every free spot on the floor save for a short walkway to her. They were on the cupboards, on the shelves and tables and on what remained of an old chaise lounge. 

When Corvo stepped in, hundreds of tiny eyes turned to look. 

The old woman straightened her back. Her clothing might’ve been fancy at some point in her life. The embroidery of the fabrics was intricate, if dirty. However, age had not treated her well. 

“My, my,” she said, turning to Corvo. Her milky white eyes looked a little bit to the right of him. Even though she was clearly blind, Corvo felt disturbingly seen. “What a pretty little bird you’ve brought to me. Here, birdie, birdie, birdie.” She made beckoning movements with her hand, as if she was holding seeds there, ready to offer them to him. 

In his form, darkening her doorstep, Corvo was much larger than her. That didn’t make him feel any safer, though. The witch was smiling and the expression was far too sharp to his liking. 

“Such a handsome bird, too,” she continued. The rats watched him with rapt attention, whiskers trembling at his direction. When the woman smiled, she showed him her rotten teeth. “Oh, but what poor condition you’re in. So weak and frail. Poor birdie. Did my darling groom not give you enough? What a silly little man he is. Come in, birdie. Granny’s got just the thing.”

Corvo hesitated. He could still make a run for it. Outside, the sun was slowly rising over the horizon, painting the port in yellows and oranges, but inside Granny Rags’ house, everything was dark. The eyes of the rats glowed with malice. Hundreds of tiny bodies were angled as if ready to jump.

But Corvo needed help. He was weak and confused and he needed someone to tell him what to do. 

Corvo had never minded being a pawn to Jessamine. He’d known she would never ask him to do anything he wouldn’t want to do. He was happy to do her bidding without question. Go where she told him to and do what was needed. 

But now he was aimless and alone and all he knew was that he wasn’t strong enough to save Emily in his current form. 

He took one step, then another. 

“There we go, my handsome little birdie,” Granny Rags cooed. “I have just the thing for you.” She pulled a vial from the folds of her outfit, a glass ampoule about half the size of the ones they sold elixirs in. It was filled with thick, black liquid. “Go on, dearie. Drink up. You’ll feel better right away.”

Corvo stepped closer and tried to reach for the vial. Only then did he realize, that he had nothing to take the vial with. Neither his wings nor his claws could help him here. 

“What poorly mannered bird,” Granny tutted. “Has no one taught you to remove your cloak when you enter someone’s house? No wonder you’re so brittle. Confused, too. Shame on you, dearie, shame on you.”

Remove his cloak? What was she talking about? 

Corvo looked down at his form. He wasn’t wearing a cloak. The witch must’ve been out of her mind. 

But…

She _was_ the Outsider’s witch. 

And then he could feel it. Heavy like a coat on his shoulders. The feathers weren’t his. The form wasn’t either. And beneath its weight, his arms twitched. 

Corvo pushed through it, fingers flared open, as if reaching into unknown depths. His hands emerged from his feathery chest. 

The wings fell behind him, dropping against his back. Corvo turned his head, beakless and featherless, and pulled down the hood. 

He was wearing a heavy, feathered cloak. The plumage was dark and iridescent, like that of a raven’s.

He breathed out a stuttery gasp, staring at his hands, scarred and dirty still. _His_ hands. His body. 

“There we go,” Granny Rags said. “Good birdie.”

His wounds had healed. He could feel it. His bones no longer ached and his lungs felt hale and whole as if there’d been nothing wrong with them in the first place. He was still in the garb he’d worn when he’d escaped Coldridge, though, the prisoner number sown to his chest and broken handcuffs around his wrists. On top of those, was the heavy cape he didn’t recognize. It was thick and warm, the inside dark purple, the outside nothing but feathers. He ran his hand over it in wonder. There was still dirt and dried mud on his skin and under his nails. 

He reeked like a corpse. 

“Go on, dearie. Take it! Take it! It’s good for you!”

He turned to Granny Rags and the vial she was offering. With trembling hands, Corvo reached for it and unscrewed the cap. He gave it a cautious sniff. 

It smelled like lamp oil. But it sure didn’t look like it. 

Screwing his eyes shut, he threw his head back and drank it in one go. 

It was vile. Viscous. Like swallowing tar. 

And it was better than anything he’d ever had. 

The moment he swallowed he could feel strength coursing through his body. He could feel it filling his flesh, burning nicely. He shuddered out a breath and bit his teeth together. 

Hunger filled his veins. The need to have _more_. To drink until he’d had his fill. To sink his teeth to the side of the old woman’s neck and drain her dry. 

He swallowed with trouble, and the vial fell from between his limp fingers. 

“Granny knows best,” she said, smarmy. “What a good little bird you are. Now off you go. Fly high, birdie, or they’re going to catch you with one stone.”

The rats started to move. They gathered around him, swarming, surrounding him, and for the one second he looked away from Granny Rags, she’d disappeared. When he next looked up, there was no sign of her. 

Corvo stumbled back and the rats followed. They shepherded him out, then pulled back in and the door was slammed shut after them. 

Suddenly, it was very quiet. Corvo’s head was spinning at the change. It felt like he’d stepped into a completely different world. Inside, it’d been dark and musty, with hundreds of hungry mouths nipping at his heels. 

Out here, the sun had climbed well over the horizon by now and the port was bathed in its soft glow. It was quiet. The only sound other than his ragged breathing, came from calm waves lapping against the harbor. 

For a moment, Corvo just stood there. He steadied his breathing, one hand on his heart, another on his throat. He started a slow trek towards the port, found an abandoned crate and sat down on it before burying his head into his hands. 

The waves kept crashing. A lone seagull flew overhead, but with the harbor quieted down, there was no chow for it to feed on, so it moved on after a while. The sun climbed higher, and slowly Corvo’s hitched breathing calmed down to a steadier rhythm. He ran fingers through his oily hair, pulling at it. The sunlight felt sublime on his skin. It’d been such a long time since he’d been able to feel it. 

It made him feel a little more alive. 

He couldn’t go anywhere in daylight. That much he knew. He might’ve looked like a mess right now, but he couldn’t chance climbing to a higher district and being recognized. At the same time, he didn’t feel like relinquishing his human form just yet. 

He didn’t know what to do. Corvo had grown used to doing as he was commanded. When Jessamine had needed him to do something, he’d done it, and done it gladly. Now there was no one to order him and all he had was the flimsy idea of rescuing Emily. 

But rescuing her from whom?

Corvo didn’t even know where she was being kept. He was a blade and a shield to the Empress. But both needed a person to wield them. 

He needed to move. That much was clear. Sitting here, by the waterfront, wasn’t going to get him anywhere. 

Walking down the streets, back to the morning shadows between the buildings, Corvo noted that the weepers no longer paid attention to him. They lifted their heads when he passed them by, but their eyes glided over him as if they could sense the loss of humanity on him. Or maybe it was just the stench of death. Corvo hunched his shoulders and hurried past them, trying to escape the smell of decay. 

_Hunger._

The feeling was quiet. More muffled now. From the very back of his mind, the beast rattled its chains. But for now, it was sated. Corvo could still feel the oily taste of the liquid from the vial on his tongue. It was at the same time a wondrous sensation, and a disgusting reminder. The taste lingered, tainting his mouth with its awful promises. 

The cobblestones were cold against his bare feet. Even though the cloak was warm, like a second layer of skin, it wasn’t enough to ward away the chill. He needed to find something better. _Real_ clothes. Cleaner than the ones he was currently wearing. 

He tried blinking like he’d done as the raven. Sepia colored his vision, turning the streets dull. He spied a couple of weepers crouched down near a trash heap, but didn’t feel good about the idea of killing them for their clothes. 

They’d suffered enough already. 

As he continued deeper, the sunlight no longer reached the streets. The other districts grew tall above him, blocking out the sun. They had their own streets, own buildings stocked on top of the shorter ones on the Lower District. The noises of the city waking up came through muffled and indistinctive. 

Corvo continued deeper, under the cover of the streets above. 

In front of what had in the past been a butcher’s shop, he found a dead Hunter. It looked like the man had been dead for a few hours at least. Perhaps he’d come to hunt down the flying beast the watchmen had seen the night before. Now he had a weeper gnawing at his leg. 

Corvo wondered if this was a real Hunter, or if he’d just dressed like one, like the ones that had climbed into the Tower had. Those had been beasts in human clothing. They’d killed the Hunters for their vestments, he was sure. But like this, it was impossible to tell the difference. Whether this had been a wolf in a Hunter’s cloak or a real Hunter, he was now dead. 

The Hunters all dressed the same. They were a superstitious bunch. They feared the mist and wore masks to ward it off and thick clothes to keep them safe from its cold, wet fingers. 

Corvo shooed the weeper off and knelt down next to the man. 

The mask would at least cover his face for now. It was shaped like a bird’s head, with herbs in the beak to ward off the Outsider’s curses. At least there was some irony there to enjoy. He tipped the mask to dig them out. One of the lenses covering the eyes had cracked when the Hunter had fallen, but it’d be enough to hide his features for now. Corvo looted his boots as well. They were a bit too big for him, but it was better than nothing. 

Next, he took the Hunter’s coat and rations. He didn’t have much. Just two elixirs, one of them half empty already. He’d also been carrying a pistol, but all he had left now were two silver bullets and a knife. 

Corvo put the coat on and the cloak over it. He pocketed the bullets and removed the Hunter’s belt so he could hang the knife from it. 

He’d accomplished the mission he’d given himself. He was now better equipped and that was a start. 

What could he do next?

The Outsider was waiting for him. But Corvo would rather not try to put on his new form before the cover of night. The smart thing to do would’ve been to find a place to hide and rest. Sleep until it got dark and then fly over the district lines. 

He shifted a little, then turned on his heels. 

He still had something else he needed to do before that. 

The woman was still there where he’d left her. She sat curled against the wall, fast asleep due to exhaustion. The hounds hadn’t come back, but here she still remained. 

She was a light sleeper. When Corvo climbed up to the awning next to her, she jolted awake with a shriek.

The shout was short-lived and warbled up by the end of it. Corvo lifted his hands in a placating manner. He pointed at the broken arm the woman was cradling and pulled out the full bottle of elixir, showing it to her. Her eyes grew larger for a moment, then squeezed shut as she started to cry. 

“I thought I was going to die!” she cried out, accepting the drink. She squeezed it in her good hand and pried it open with her teeth. Spilling some in her hurry, she gulped the medicine down. It wouldn’t mend her bones outright, but it would numb the pain enough. 

Now to find a way to get her back up to Commons. 

Due to the quarantine, there were no easy ways in and out of Lower District. It was commonly accepted that once you fell down here, you were as good as dead. 

But the Hunters still needed to get in and out. So, there must’ve been a way through somewhere. 

He jumped down from the awning and waved at the woman to follow. She was a lot clumsier than him and with her arm the way that it was, he couldn’t blame her. 

They started making their way back towards the spot, where Corvo had found the Hunter. He didn’t feel like trying the limits of his new situation, so for now, he made sure that they avoided the weepers and other beasts as much as possible. 

“I… Thank you so much,” the woman babbled. “I thought… I was sure I was going to die!” Her voice still trembled, but she was gaining back some confidence. 

Corvo blinked and followed the movements of the weepers through his gifted vision. He waved at the woman to keep her mouth shut and they continued. 

They reached the dead Hunter and Corvo stopped to take a look around. The Hunters mostly moved in small groups, paired up or alone. The bigger groups only gathered, when they were hunting larger beasts or swarms of weepers. Lonely Hunters could travel deeper into the district unnoticed. 

The woman stared at the Hunter. From the corner of his eye, Corvo could see her brows drawing into a frown before her eyes flew to Corvo. She swallowed down a quick gasp and pulled back, cradling her broken arm closer to her chest. 

He turned to face her and she stumbled back. She’d gone pale. 

He could see her line of reasoning. There was a dead Hunter here, with no boots, mask or jacket. And the jacket on Corvo’s shoulders was caked with drying blood and it didn’t sit quite well. 

For a moment, neither of them moved. Corvo waited to see what the woman would do. If she ran now, she wouldn’t have much of a chance of survival out there. But he wouldn’t stop her if she did. 

The woman’s fingers curled around the sleeve of her arm and her lip wobbled. 

“Are you…” she started. “Are you actually a witch?”

Corvo blinked and looked down. 

That was… a good question. 

In the eyes of the church? If you entered into a deal with the Ancient Evil, you were a witch. For the Empire, the church’s word on anything supernatural was the only truth. And in the eyes of the public, what the church preached and the Empire announced, was the way of the world. 

For all of them, Corvo was a witch. 

But was he really? Did he know any spells? He knew how to shift his form. Barely. He had a vision that allowed him to see in the dark like it was the light of day and that painted living beings in a glow. 

He did not feel like he was a witch, though. And he definitely did not worship the Outsider. 

And now he had taken too long to think about it. The woman was stumbling further back. She looked ready to run. 

“Did you kill that Hunter?” she asked. 

That, he could at least answer easily. Corvo shook his head. 

The woman stopped her retreat. 

“But… you stole his boots?”

He nodded, then shrugged. 

Her hold on her arm grew a little lighter and she looked back at the Hunter. She was dressed like a commoner. Times had been rough lately. Corvo would not have put it past her to steal someone else’s boots to keep her feet warm when the mists rolled to the shores of Commons. 

“You did give me that elixir,” she muttered. Then she turned to look at him. She tried to act so brave, but Corvo could practically smell the fear from her. It made the beast inside stir and the hunger grow. “What are you planning to do with me?” she demanded. 

That was a bit more complicated of a question. Corvo tilted his head and thought about it. Then, he pointed a finger up. Commons seemed to be far above their reach. Even the rails were too far. Without waiting for the woman’s reaction, Corvo turned his back to her. 

The Hunter had left a trail of dead weepers in his wake. Following them would allow them to at least see where he’d come from. But that would only get them so far. 

He started walking. 

After a while, he heard the woman’s uncertain steps behind him. 

They followed the trail of corpses for a few blocks. Corvo’s head was starting to ache from the gifted sight. It was causing a strain on his eyes, like the nerves connecting them to his head were growing tighter. Still, they hadn’t found any signs for a way out. 

Corvo considered his options. He supposed he could’ve shifted and carried the woman himself. But despite the fact that the woman was now following someone she suspected to be a witch, he doubted she would willingly go with a beast. And even if he did manage to get her up there like that, people would see her with a beast and the church might capture her for just that. 

He didn’t know what to do. He was getting hungrier. He could feel her frightened heartbeat in his bones and it made his mouth salivate. 

They needed a solution, fast. 

He had no choice. He’d tried to do this a better way, but he was wasting too much time. 

Corvo stopped and shot a look at the woman. She’d staggered to a stop as well, and studied Corvo with a worried look. She could feel the change in his attitude and took half a step back. 

There were plenty of Hunters in the ruins of the Lower District. Corvo knew that. All he really needed to do was attract at least one of them. 

He sighed. 

He supposed it was time to see if he could still shrug off his human appearance. 

With uncertainty in his features, he gave one last look at the woman’s way, before pulling the hood over his head. As his hands retreated into the depths of the cloak, he felt his body changing. His back hunched and his legs popped. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant either. 

And when his beak sprouted out to let out a croak, he could feel the hunger intensifying. 

The woman let out a terrified shriek, stumbling back and falling down. Corvo spread his wings, kicking off the ground and sending dust flying. He rose higher and higher as the woman remained frozen on the ground. And then he let out a loud screech. 

The sound was piercing and it rang from the decaying walls, sending broken concrete falling all around. Corvo rose even higher, making a circle around the block, letting out one loud yell after the other. 

He was soon rewarded for his troubles, when a silver tipped arrow just barely missed his face. 

He’d gotten the attention of two Hunters. Blue-coated and dressed in hound masks, they drew intimidating figures. One of them aimed another arrow and shot it, but it flew wide past him. Diving out of the way, Corvo started to make his way back towards the woman. The Hunters followed. 

Corvo was still a little clumsy on his wings, but in the tight alleys of the Lower District, it was easier to keep a corner between him and the Hunters. 

He led them right to the woman, making a tight dip at her as if he was about to attack her. 

What he’d meant to do was to curve away from her at the last moment, to frighten her and nothing more. But as he approached her, the sight of her cowering before him filled his throat with hunger. The beast roared, sharp claws reaching. 

The bullet grazed his side. Nothing more than that. But the searing touch of silver had him screaming. He pulled up, leaving the woman behind. 

The Hunters, predictably moved to protect her. 

Shaken by the momentary lapse, Corvo picked up speed, flying off over the rooftops. Looking back, one of the Hunters stayed with the woman while the other chased after him. 

On foot, though, the Hunter would have no chance catching up to him. Corvo flew over rooftops, tore out from under his cloak and landed on his hands and feet on the slippery roof tiles of an old apartment building. 

Through the tinted vision, he watched the Hunter run past the building, eyes on the sky. Corvo, on the other hand, climbed down and started making his way back to the port. 

Back in his human form, his legs were trembling. A hunger clawed at his throat. When was the last time he’d eaten? Properly, that was?

The old witch had given him that disgusting slime. Before that, it’d been…

It’d been the hound. 

And before that? 

Corvo could still taste moldy bread on his tongue. And dirty water to wash it down with. Once a week, he’d been given meat. 

The man from his neighboring cell had boasted on how he captured rats to eat. How they tasted like chicken, when fried with the Walls of Light. 

After a while, it had stopped feeling like such an outrageous thing. 

Corvo made his way back down to ground level. Sticking to the shadier alleyways and keeping an eye on anything living, he made his way back. He wasn’t sure yet where he was going or what he should do. He knew he couldn’t leave the district before sundown. He needed to rest before that. 

And feed. 

The hunger didn’t make his stomach gurgle. No, it made his throat feel parched. 

It made him consider the weepers digging through the trash. 

The blood in them might not have been fresh anymore. But it was _there._

The thought made him want to barf. 

Corvo’s fingers curled around the feathers of his cloak. He needed to get away from the sun. It was making his head hurt. 

That was when he heard it. Something moving around in the building to his right. A large, living creature emanating light through his vision. He could hear it sniffing around, growling quietly. 

A wolf. 

And then it stopped. Corvo could feel eyes on him. When he looked again, the creature had disappeared. 

He could see no one. 

He was alone. 

He couldn’t stay here. He drew the collar of the Hunter’s jacket higher and ran.

*

Corvo had found himself a place to hide in for the day. Dockworkers had probably lived in the apartment building before it’d been abandoned. The front door had been locked and barred, but the rail car that had fallen through the roof had created an easy entrance from the above.

The bed had been dry enough for him to sleep in and the walls of the bedroom were thick enough to keep the draft away. He’d managed to sleep for a couple of fitful hours until the sun had gone down and it’d been enough to take away the strain from behind his eyes. 

The cupboards, however, had been empty. 

The hunger was terrifying. Corvo had known hunger in Coldridge. The guards had enjoyed lessening the amount of food they gave him each passing week. But that had nothing on the gnawing feeling climbing up his throat. It was nearly blinding. And it wasn’t the dried meats and canned fruits that he craved. 

Corvo could hear rats scurrying on the rafters. He could hear their tiny hearts and feel the fear they felt when he grabbed them and bit their heads off. 

The blood was like sweetest nectar. 

He felt disgusted with himself afterwards, but the hunger had quieted down from a scream into a quiet whisper at the back of his mind. The beast was sated, for now. 

Corvo doubted it would last for long. 

He waited in the apartment until the sun fell out of sight. He waited perched on the fallen rail car until the last light of the day had disappeared behind the horizon. And even after that, he sat a moment longer still. 

Worry gnawed at his insides. Worry about taking flight again. 

In this form, with two feet under him and two hands at his sides, he could trust himself to make the right decisions. 

In the raven form, though…

He could still remember how he’d been blinded by his own hunger for the shortest of moments. How he’d thought he was helping the woman by luring the Hunters to her and instead he’d almost turned on her. 

In this form, the beast was locked up and far from his conscious mind. Corvo could still _feel_ it, somewhere deep in there, but it was asleep. In his beast form, though, it was much closer. Ready to break to the surface at a moment’s notice. 

Corvo looked up at the sky. The lights from the districts above blinded the stars. 

But the beast knew. If they flew high enough, it wouldn’t matter. 

The sky was beckoning to him. It was whispering promises of escape. 

Corvo longed to respond to them. 

But he couldn’t. No matter how much he would’ve liked to let the winds carry him, he was shackled to this place. 

He still had his duty. His honor might’ve been tainted, but he’d never been one to worry about things like that. 

What he worried about was the fate of Jessamine’s daughter. 

He gritted his teeth together. 

For Emily, he would do anything. She didn’t deserve any of this. 

Corvo drew the hood of the cloak over his head and pulled it tight around him. 

The wings on his back grew wide and strong, striking down. Clawed feet pushed off the car and he rose to the night sky. 

It was a little easier now. It was becoming simpler with every passing flight. He rose over the edge of the Lower District, picking up speed. The world around him shrunk into a tinier and tinier thing, the buildings below turning into matchboxes, with fireflies for lampposts. 

The air up here was fresher. He felt like he could breathe properly for the first time for the whole day. The stench of Lower District couldn’t reach him up here. Nothing could. 

When he blinked sepia, he could see everything. Every tiny person walking on Towering District, lit up like flickering matches.

And there, far away in the distance, rising higher than any other building and nearly reaching the clouds themselves, was the Dunwall Tower in the Imperial District. 

Corvo blinked and let his vision return back to normal. He wasn’t here to see the sights. 

He needed to find the Outsider. 

He’d told Corvo to meet him at the rooftops. But Dunwall was a sprawling city, with thousands of rooftops to choose from. And approaching the streets, even in the cover of darkness, was just going to get him seen. 

He made a circle over the portside, eyeing the buildings below. He could see tiny people, getting ready for the night. Families locking up their doors to keep beasts outside. He continued his flight towards inland. 

_Corvo._

His heart seized in his chest, freezing his wings at his sides, and for a few, heart-stopping seconds he dropped into a fall. He realized with a start that he couldn’t just stop dead up here and got his wings under him again. 

For a moment, he just flapped in place, confused. 

That… 

That had sounded like Jessamine. 

His insides squeezed painfully. 

It’d felt so real. Like she’d been flying right by his side, whispering to his ear. 

_Corvo._

The wind carried her voice and it was so real Corvo could’ve _sworn_ she was right there. He folded his wings to his side and dropped down into a deliberate dive, trying to follow the voice. It whispered his name when he flew over Wrenhaven and towards Dunwall Tower. 

It didn’t lead him to the Tower, though. It took him towards the edges of the city, where the outbreak had reached above the Lower District, where tall, expensive Towering District buildings stood, abandoned by the people. It led him to a clocktower, high above everything else. 

And there stood the Outsider, hand outstretched to the wind, mist billowing around him, like a cloud that had descended from the skies. And on his hand, he held something pulsating. 

_Corvo_ , it whispered. The Outsider put down his hand as Corvo landed next to him. 

“You still live,” he said. “I’m glad to see it. Not all make it through the first night alive.” He regarded Corvo with a tilted head. “Or sane.”

Corvo tried to reach for his hand, forgetting his shape. He focused on the edges of his body, pulling his hands free, his wings turning into the back of his cape. 

But by the time he was free of his new form, the Outsider’s hands were empty. 

A gripping disappointment almost had him falling to his knees. The Outsider moved past him without care, looking down at the city opening before them. 

“It’s a pity,” he said, watching the streets, hands behind his back. Quarantine walls kept this part of the district locked up and out of reach. But there was little the watchmen could do to stop the slow spread of the rot. 

From this far up, both the weepers and people were tiny like ants. 

“She would’ve brought stability to this city,” the Outsider said. “Gristol would’ve prospered like it never had before.” He blinked slowly, bottomless black eyes surveying the city. “Her daughter would’ve continued her work after her, her children and children’s children after that. Gristol will never see such light again.” He breathed out a long sigh before turning to look at Corvo over his shoulder. “Not the way it would’ve seen, at least.”

The Outsider looked him in the eye. 

“The Viceroy wishes to play the hero,” he said. “And he cares very little what happens to the girl. He will mold her to his wishes and when he’s done, there will be very little left of the Empress.”

Corvo gritted his teeth together, hands curling into fists. 

He would rather die than let that happen. 

He could taste blood on his tongue. He’d rip the Viceroy to shreds and feast on his bone marrows. 

The thought startled him and he gasped for air like a dying man. He squeezed his hand over his chest, holding tight. 

The Outsider looked at him without an outward expression. 

“I will watch you with great interest,” he said, before turning back to the city. “What you do now, will no doubt shape the Empire’s future for generations to come. It will, at the very least, be fascinating to follow.”

Corvo’s thoughts were swimming. 

“I know a man,” the Outsider said. “A brilliant man, who owes me a great deal. He can help you get started.” He pulled something out of his pocket and Corvo perked up. When he handed over nothing but a piece of paper with an address and a name on it, all he could feel was disappointment. “Find Piero Joplin. He will know what you’re there for. The first taste will be for free.” 

So. He had a goal now. Viceroy Burrows, Corvo thought. And Father Campbell. He knew they’d been in on it, at least. 

One of them had to know Emily’s location. It was the only thing that mattered right now. Corvo had heard of the madness that claimed the Outsider’s beasts eventually. He could feel it crawling in him already and it would no doubt grow stronger with passing time. He didn’t know how much he had left until it’d be over for him, but before it got to him, he would get Emily to safety. He could go from there. He didn’t have it in him to plan any further ahead right now. 

“One last thing,” the Outsider said. “I promised you a gift. 

Corvo looked up at him. 

_Corvo._

The Outsider was holding a heart. It was beating in his hand, like freshly ripped out. Dark, viscous liquid spewed from the open aorta, blackening the Outsider’s hand. 

_Corvo_ , the heart whispered. 

A strangled croak was stolen from Corvo’s throat and he threw himself at the Outsider, hands outstretched. This didn’t seem to faze the Ancient Evil one bit. He just reached out with his free hand and grabbed onto the hair at the back of his neck, pulling Corvo off with a surprising amount of strength. 

The Outsider held struggling Corvo like he was nothing more than a child. In his hands, he turned around the heart and watched it with little fascination. 

_Corvo._

“The heart of a living being,” the Outsider said. “To guide you on your way.”

And then he plunged it into Corvo’s chest. 

The pain was excruciating. He screamed in agony as the heart settled next to his own, beating sharp and painfully, squirming through his insides. Like barbed wire coiling around his chest, the heart clung to his own. Beating in near harmony, Corvo could feel the new muscle next to his, colder and foreign to his flesh. 

The Outsider regarded him with little interest as his vision started to swim. 

“I do hope you’ll live long enough to make a difference,” he said, before starting to walk off. “It’d be quite boring, if this was the end.”

And that was the last thing Corvo heard, before blacking out.


	2. Conspiracy – Sin in the House of God

Piero Joplin’s workshop was far less assuming than Corvo had expected. For a man supposedly aided by the Outsider himself, his small attic laboratory was dingy and cramped. 

When Corvo landed on his balcony, the man was sleeping against a desk, tiny glasses skewed on his face, cheek smushed against his arm. Corvo drew himself back to his human form and knocked on the door. 

Joplin flinched awake, scattering papers and tiny vials on the floor around him. For a moment he looked confused. Then he turned to the window and his eyes grew large. 

Instead of being frightened by a stranger in a broken Hunter’s mask standing on his balcony on the sixth floor of a six storey house, he looked excited. 

He was already talking before he even opened the door, his words muffled. 

“Oh, I was expecting you!” he said. “How strange the times have gotten. I wasn’t sure when you’d show up, but he said I’d know it when it happened. And here you are!”

Corvo watched the man. He was tall and gangly, with dark shadows under his eyes. He wondered what the Outsider said to him. Surely, he couldn’t have told the man about Corvo. He’d known Corvo for all of one day, so he _couldn’t_ have known. 

But, then again, the Outsider was the Ancient Evil. The All-Knowing Liar. The Father of Beasts and the Lord of the Void. Who knew which parts of the tales were fact and which fiction?

“I have just the thing for you,” Joplin said, hurrying to the back of his small laboratory. “I’ve been working on these for years now!”

There was a large stack of books on the floor, in front of a heavy cupboard. Joplin shoved the whole pile aside, spreading books around his already cluttered floor. From behind the pile, he revealed the doors to the cupboard. Patting around his jacket pockets, Joplin produced a tiny key and opened the doors. Behind the doors, he removed some more books only to open another, smaller set of doors with another, smaller key. Corvo could hear him rummaging through the things back there. When he pulled back out, he was hauling a wooden crate. 

“I’ve been trying to make them just right,” he huffed, heaving the crate on his desk and making it groan under its weight. “Ever since he placed the order. He told me you’d be coming to claim this someday.”

Corvo moved further into Joplin’s laboratory. 

How much had the Outsider known beforehand? He wouldn’t put it past the All-Knowing Liar to have at least some sort of foresight. If the tales of the church were to be believed, he’d existed for millennia. 

But… If he’d known, why hadn’t he tried to stop it?

The assassination. The attack and kidnapping. 

Beasts had breached the Tower walls. They’d climbed all the way to the Imperial District, killing anyone getting in their way. _They’d_ been marked by the Outsider as well. _They’d_ been his creations too. 

Their leader, Daud, was rumored to be one of his most beloved children. Everyone in Dunwall knew his name and whispered it in fear. 

Corvo could remember the songs. Never trust the Outsider. He offers gifts with one hand, holds a knife in the other. 

He needed to be careful. 

Even Joplin, kind enough as he seemed, could hide more beneath the surface. 

Joplin snapped open the latches of the crate and lifted the lid. Corvo craned his neck to see what was inside. 

Resting on old straw, was an assortment of things. 

The first thing Joplin lifted out was a mask. It was shaped like the skull of a bird. Forged out of what looked like random pieces of recycled metal and wire, it was dark in places, bone white in others. He handed it over to Corvo, who took it in his hands and turned it around with care. It was surprisingly light. He tried to bend it. Sturdy too. 

“Well, try it on,” Joplin encouraged him. “We won’t know if it fits unless you do.”

Corvo hesitated a moment before pulling off the ill-fitting Hunter’s mask. If Joplin recognized him as the old previous Royal Protector, he hid it well. Although, after being thrown into Coldridge, Corvo had grown gaunter, more ragged. Even though his wounds had healed now, he was still dirty and unshaven after his stay. A far-cry from a man passing for noble. 

He pulled the mask on and the moment he did, Joplin moved closer, caring very little about his personal space or the stench of death he still carried. He adjusted the latches on the side, making it sit more snuggly. 

“Now tell me, can you see well enough through the lenses?”

Corvo looked around. Compared to the Hunter’s mask, Joplin’s creation was surprisingly unobtrusive. Corvo was growing used to the idea of a bird’s head. He tried the side of the face and found switches for the lenses, the glass magnifying his field of vision. 

Despite the fact that it looked like it’d been made of scrap, the mask was very well made. He turned back to Joplin, who was looking at him expectantly. 

Corvo hesitated a moment, then nodded. 

Joplin smiled, pleased. 

“Good!” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to try it out myself, save for a few adjustments. He didn’t give me proper measurements, so I had to take guesses. Give it a field test and if it’s showing any problems, bring it here and I’ll fix it.”

The crate also held a crossbow, arrows, darts and some vials of elixir. Corvo lifted the crossbow carefully and sized it in his hands. It was light, but well made. It’d been a while since he’d had a chance to use one. He took an arrow and aimed with the bow. 

He would gladly take the weapon over the pistol he’d gotten from the Hunter. It was quieter. He pocketed the arrows and darts and picked up the elixirs next. 

At least, he’d thought they were elixirs. They certainly were in similar bottles. But holding the vials against the light of Joplin’s oil lamp, Corvo could see that the color wasn’t quite right. Instead of the usual red of the Sokolov stuff, this was darker. 

Something else had been mixed into the liquid 

He unscrewed the cap and took a sniff. 

It had a strange smell. 

The beast inside stirred. It was hungry. 

Corvo pulled away and turned to look at Joplin. 

“It’s a concoction of my own,” he said. “Be careful with it, it’s strong stuff. And, uh, I don’t have much of it myself. The ingredients are rare and he hasn’t come around as often as he used to.”

Joplin had somehow gotten his hands on the blood of the Outsider. Corvo was sure he should’ve felt disgusted. Instead, he just pocketed the vials as well, promising himself to keep them as the last resort, only to be taken if the hunger got overwhelming. 

“I also have just regular mines and grenades here,” Joplin muttered. “ _Somewhere._ Hm. I’ve been tinkering with them, but I’d be willing to part with them, if you want.”

Corvo considered this, then shook his head. 

He wasn’t sure where he was going to end up in, or how he’d be dealing with this. Jessamine had rarely asked him to do espionage for her. She’d had her spies for that. But Corvo didn’t know if he could win in a large-scale fight. 

He would go silent, gather intel and avoid detection to the best of his ability. 

Joplin hummed in thought, then hit his fist against his palm. 

“I do have something else for you!” he said. “Hold on there for a moment.”

He rummaged through his cabinets a moment longer, before producing three glass bottles filled with what looked like oil. 

“Chokedust!” Joplin declared proudly. “I managed to get my hands on it! It can be quite effective against multiple targets!”

Corvo was aware. He stared at the bottles, remembering how the guards had thrown them into his cell just to hear him choke. 

“What else, what else,” Joplin muttered. “Oh! Yes, of course. Here.” He offered Corvo more arrows. Corvo lifted his hand to say no, he already had his pockets full of them, but then Joplin said: “They’re tipped with silver.”

Corvo hesitated, then reached to pocket them as well. Then, with the interaction over, he turned back to the balcony. He shot a look behind him at Joplin, then pulled the hood over his head. When he dropped off the railing to his wings, he could hear Joplin gasp in wonder behind him. 

High up in the night sky, Corvo thought about what he needed to do. 

The Viceroy and the Bishop. He needed to find them. Question them. 

But both of them were men of great power in Dunwall. And Corvo was but one man, even in a beast’s form. Even with the power of the Outsider on his side, he wouldn’t be able to take down all of their men. 

He’d been known for his efficiency with a sword. He could take on the church’s trained zealots a few at a time, he was sure. But reaching Father Campbell in his own office, surrounded by all of the best trained militant soldiers of the church wouldn’t be easy. And one knife against bullets wasn’t going to end well for the person holding the knife. 

A strange feeling started beating in his chest. It was a reminder. The Heart was off rhythm to his own, beating slightly faster, stinging in his chest. 

He couldn’t fail. He couldn’t die. If he did, it would’ve all been for nothing. 

If he dove down in his beast form to the inner yard of the largest church building in the city, the Abbey, and brought the Outsider’s wrath upon them, he’d be able to rip and tear. He’d drink their blood and feast on their flesh. 

The Heart started beating faster. It took the beast’s hunger and whispered it into his ear. _Devour them_ , she whispered. _Sate the Hunger. Drink them dry._

A disgruntled croak escaped his throat. 

He wouldn’t be feasting on anything. He would die by their silvery swords and they’d string his feathered corpse up in front of the church building for the people to see. That was what they did to the mad beasts of hell. That was what happened to the Outsider’s flock, when the church got them in their hands. 

The Heart slowed again. The stinging ceased. 

No. Corvo couldn’t just go attacking the Abbey. And he couldn’t trust his new instincts enough to try to go out for blood either. 

But Corvo needed answers and both Father Campbell and Viceroy Burrows could offer those to him. And right now, he believed he had better chances reaching the Bishop in his Abbey rather than Burrows in his Tower. 

The churchmen had sanctums all around Dunwall. When the city had been growing, they’d demanded to build their churches on every district, so that the people would always be reminded of the presence of the holy and the logical. They paid the Hunters to hunt in the name of their god and to keep the Outsider’s forces down. 

Corvo had never agreed with the way Dunwall’s priests ran the church. For men and women preaching holiness, he rarely saw people as sinful as them. And in the times of crisis, they’d decided to sow fear into the hearts of the citizens rather than calm. 

The Heart hummed sorrowfully in his chest. 

In their height of hubris, their leader had thought himself above the law. 

Corvo had never been familiar with Bishop Campbell, but he believed he’d gotten to know the man well enough when he’d come to taunt him at Coldridge under the guise of absolving him of his sins. Father Campbell had thought he was free to say whatever he pleased, since Corvo wouldn’t be repeating it to anyone anyway, so talk he had.

The things he’d said. 

The man was the lowest of them all. 

The Heart agreed. 

Corvo approached the Abbey from above. Rainclouds had been gathering since sundown and now he glided through them, watching the tiny, glowing people far below. It was a quiet nigh at the Abbey. A handful of churchmen were milling about, but most of them had withdrawn inside to wait out the approaching rain. 

The only glowing spots of light out in the courtyard were a churchman and someone shackled to the foot of a statue. The priest in front of it was currently kicking the man in the shackles. 

He didn’t consider his actions much. Corvo drew his wings against his sides and fell into a deep glide. Wind howled in his ears as he approached the ground. The man in shackles noticed him first, his eyes growing wide and mouth falling open. 

Corvo pulled his glide up at the last moment, grabbing hold of the churchman and throwing him down to the ground. With his claws around his head, he knocked the man unconscious against the cobblestone. 

The man in shackles gasped. Corvo looked up, realizing his mistake. 

The man was dressed the same as the churchman. 

“Lord have mercy,” the priest whispered, pulling back as much as his chains would allow. 

At least he wasn’t calling for help yet. Corvo needed to silence him fast. He shifted quickly and picked a sleep dart from his pocket. No crossbow needed, if he could just jab it to his neck. 

“You’re one of the Outsider’s,” the priest said and it wasn’t fear or resentment in his voice. 

It was awe. 

Corvo hesitated and looked at him. 

They _were_ keeping the man in shackles. An infiltrator? No, surely they wouldn’t have allowed someone like that wear their clothes while he was being punished. 

But awed or not, Corvo couldn’t take the risk of leaving him conscious. He pulled out the dart. If the man alerted the others, it was over for him. They’d both be a lot safer with him out of it. 

But what if they meant to kill him? 

Corvo’s fingers twitched around the arrow. 

He wouldn’t have put it past Father Campbell. It would’ve been far from the first time he’d had someone killed just to make a point. 

And Corvo couldn’t in good conscience leave the man tied up here. 

He closed his eyes and breathed deep for a moment. Then he slid the dart right back into his pocket and moved to study the shackles they’d tied the priest up with. 

The permanent setup they had here meant that they probably locked up many a sinner here. With one pull of a lever, the man was free. He stumbled to his feet, rubbing at his wrists. 

“I don’t know who you are,” the man said. “But you have my thanks. To think that I’d end up rescued by one of the Outsider’s lot.” He gave Corvo a look over, still refusing to look nothing more than intrigued. “You didn’t come here to tempt me with a deal, did you?”

Corvo clicked his tongue and drew at his cloak to shift. Before he could shift, though, the priest had suddenly moved to grab the thick, feathered cloth to examine it with care. 

“Fascinating,” he said. “Is this your curse?”

Corvo grimaced, grabbing his arm and twisting it. He caught the priest by surprise, forcing him to his knees. 

The man grunted. “Ah!” he said. “Forgive me.” He struggled in Corvo’s hold, but was unable to break free. Corvo was startled to realize how easy it was to pin the man down like this. How much stronger he was. 

How easy it would’ve been to sink his nails to his throat and drink what spilled out. 

A sting pierced his chest. He stumbled back, the Heart’s beating spiking to a painful degree. 

The priest got to his feet, steadying his stance and straightening his cloaks. There were still no signs of fear. Just disgruntlement now. 

“Are you even human at all?” he asked. “Or the Outsider himself come to tempt me?”

Corvo bared his teeth and pushed the mask off his head, showing the man his face. He was no Outsider and there’d be no mixing up a face like his to the Ancient Evil. 

He hadn’t expected the man to recognize him. Joplin hadn’t. But by the look of shock and realization, Corvo understood his mistake. 

The man reached his hand as if to touch and Corvo snapped back, pulling the mask down and slapping the hand away. 

“I… My apologies,” the priest said. “I recognize your face. You were the Royal Protector.”

Corvo bit his teeth together. 

“They say you died,” the priest said. “They say you killed…” He fell silent. “My condolences. I know better than to trust the words of a man like Campbell. He can preach all he wants, but his heresy isn’t easily hidden by flimsy words. I take it that you’re here for him?”

Corvo considered the man. He was speaking openly about things that could end with him branded as a traitor to someone he considered the Outsider’s beast. But then again, they _had_ had him in chains. He must not have been popular amongst the church people. 

Corvo nodded. 

”Good,” the man said, surprising Corvo with his enthusiasm. “The Bishop is insufferable. The church has been in a downward spiral for the longest time, but in his hands, we’ve truly suffered.” He tilted his head, a thoughtful expression taking over. “You know,” he said, “rumor has it he’s taken into dark arts. Perhaps he’s one of yours?”

Corvo gave him a long look, making the man lift his hand in appeasement. 

“I only meant,” he said, “that if you mean to take him down, it might be better not to kill him and make him a martyr. The church doesn’t need more of those. Get his black book instead. He carries it with him wherever he goes. It’s bound to have information in it we could use.”

_We?_ Corvo crossed his arms and tilted his head back. 

The priest was unaffected. 

“Campbell writes his notes in code,” he said. “You won’t find anyone else to translate it for you in such a short notice. But _I’ve_ been preparing for this for a while now. I can read the code for you, so you’ll get to know where they’ve taken the Empress’ daughter.” He fell silent, then grinned. “That _is_ what you want to know, is it not?”

Corvo didn’t trust this. He’d never met a churchman in Dunwall without ulterior motives. This man was far too eager to help someone he saw as a servant for the Enemy.

And yet, Corvo had seen the black book himself. Father Campbell carried it everywhere he went. He’d had it with him in Coldridge as well. 

He didn’t have other leads at the moment. 

Well. He could’ve gone in there and tried to get Father Campbell to talk. Strap him down and interrogate him like they’d done to him. 

Corvo swallowed with struggle, feeling the ghost of searing hot iron on his skin, of broken bones and taste of blood while he was asked questions the Bishop and the Viceroy had known he couldn’t answer. 

No. He didn’t have the stomach for it. 

The book would be easier. 

Corvo gave the priest a careful look from the corner of his eye. He was exuding well-natured confidence that no man of the church should’ve shown when making a deal with a witch. 

He lifted a hand to his chest. 

Maybe that meant he could be trusted?

Corvo doubted it very much. But he had little choice. 

He nodded. 

The priest smiled. It was a thin little thing. Sharper than it had any right to be. “Excellent,” he said, offering his hand to Corvo. “Martin. Teague Martin. Consider me tempted. But only for the good of the church.”

Corvo gave a look at his hand and made no move to take it. After a moment, Martin let it drop, but the smile remained. 

Corvo drew his cloak back over his body and Martin stepped back to give him room. He watched Corvo leave and his eyes had Corvo’s skin prickling even as he made it above the Abbey. He tried to breathe easy. It was fine. He could use some help. Trying to do this alone would be difficult and dangerous. He flew over the decorated front yard, over the church building and towards the offices behind them. 

From up above, the Abbey looked so small. Insignificant. The effect the church had on the city could not be seen as easily from here. It was undeniable, though. Small as they might’ve seemed from afar, the church’s reach was great and the effects they had on the people terrible. The leadership had rotted the good ideals from the inside. Jessamine had done her best to keep them in check, but the church had never been that reliant on the Empire’s opinion to begin with. 

Maybe that was why the Bishop had decided to turn against her in secret. Maybe that was why he’d plotted to have her killed. 

Cowardly fool. He should’ve finished Corvo off when he had the chance. 

Anger he didn’t fully recognize filled his lungs. It gave him strength. In the cover of darkness, he flew closer, landing on the Abbey’s office roof and shifting back. A window on the uppermost floor was open and he snuck in through. 

He was in the attic. There was a smell of cigarette smoke in the air, but when he looked around, he could see no living beings close by, other than the rats in the walls. He hurried out and into the stairwell, sticking to the shadows. 

Jessamine had visited the Abbey with her entourage a couple of times. They came to celebrate the masses twice a year, although the celebrations were small and dour when compared to the long feasts they’d used to have in Serkonos. It’d been a while since Corvo had entered the office building behind the church itself, though. He needed to find Father Campbell’s office. If the Bishop himself wasn’t there, he could at least wait until he came around.

The problem was, Corvo didn’t know where Father Campbell’s office was located. 

Which meant he was going to have to look around. 

Corvo kept a close eye on the people moving about. He had no intention on engaging them. Starting a fight might frighten the Bishop into hiding and only make things harder. So, he stuck close to walls and hid in shadows and behind furniture to avoid the eyes of the priests patrolling the hallways. No one had yet spotted an intruder and he would’ve liked to keep things that way. 

He snuck through the third-floor west wing, but found neither Father Campbell nor his office. When he’d been here with Jessamine, most of the meetings had been held in the Grand Halls or the church itself, probably to instill the fear of god into her so she wouldn’t dare to go against them. It’d been their mistake. Jessamine had never been one to cower before grand displays of power. She’d grown up in it. Whereas the regular folks of Dunwall might’ve seen the grand glass paintings depicting the heroic feats of the Saints and felt the awe, Jessamine had only been interested in what the people in power wanted. 

And those people had not been worth the awe. 

He supposed he’d have to make his way to the east wing. He’d better go outside and –

A strange smell reached his nose. A heady, alluring scent, so alive and strong. 

He started salivating. 

_Blood_ , the Heart whispered the beast’s thoughts. 

And then Corvo heard screaming. 

It was muffled. Ringing through the walls, it was barely audible. 

Cold sweat started to perspire on Corvo’s neck. His breathing turned shaky. 

The howls of pain reached their pitch, then turned into muffled sobbing. Then it grew again, piercing the halls. 

Corvo’s heart caught in his throat and felt dizzy. His skin was clammy and cold, his lungs failing him, like he was back in Coldridge all over again. 

He couldn’t…

He didn’t _want to…_

He slumped against the wall, covering his ears. But he couldn’t escape from the sound. It burrowed into his skull like a drill, breaking through and leaving him vulnerable. Two hearts were beating wild in his chest, one filled with panic, the other with confusion. 

Corvo felt like he was about to black out…

“Hey!”

A priest. A priest had found him and drawn his sword. His stance was uncertain, his eyes scared and he looked like he was about to call for help. 

Instinct took over. Corvo pounced, grabbing onto the priest’s sword arm with one hand, hitting his nose with the elbow of the other. The man spluttered and coughed, blood spilling when his nose crunched. Corvo swirled around to get him into a headlock. 

After a quick moment of struggling, the priest fell limp in his arms. 

The hearts were still beating wildly in his chest. That’d been careless. He could’ve gotten killed there. But the screaming had stopped and the adrenaline had cleared his head, if only for the moment. His hands were shaking wildly, too erratic to do anything else than to grip onto the priest’s robes. 

He set the man down carefully and looked around. There was a partition separating a sitting area from the hallway. Corvo dragged the man there and placed him on one of the chairs, hoping that a passer-by might confuse him for someone sleeping on the job. Then, he took the man’s sword and put it on his belt. 

The screaming had stopped and left behind it a ringing silence. 

It didn’t make Corvo feel much better. He could taste bile in his mouth and swallowing it down made him feel sick. He ran his clammy, shaking hands down the side of his cloak, pulling at it as if he was going to shift right there. 

He couldn’t. He needed to move on. He couldn’t be caught here. 

Sticking so close to the walls he was practically leaning on them, he forced his legs to take him forward. Looking around, he spotted two living beings up ahead. In a small room, with thick walls, one person was tied to a chair by the looks of his position, while the other loomed over them. 

Corvo’s fingers curled into a fist against the wall. It was a familiar sight. Although, Corvo could better remember what it had been like to be the one tied to the chair. 

Cold sweat gathered on his forehead. It wasn’t any of his business. He should try to avoid it. 

And then he saw the other figure reaching down at the man in the chair and the screaming was back. 

The beast took over. 

One moment, Corvo had been leaning against the wall, catching his breath. The next, he was standing over the whimpering interrogator, hands bloodied and breathing haggard. 

The smell of blood was overwhelming. Corvo felt the thirst clawing at his throat. It would’ve been so easy. He was strong, stronger than the interrogator. He could’ve ripped open his throat and feasted on his flesh. The interrogator tried to cover his face with his arms and all Corvo could feel was glee at the sight of his fright. 

A painful sting pierced his chest, just by the side of his heart. A beating that wasn’t quite his had him doubling down on the floor.

_You were no killer._

He gasped for breath, clawing at his mask. Legs giving out under him, he stumbled back. The interrogator tried to reach for something on his tool tray, gripping blindly. Corvo grabbed a dart from his pocket and stuck it to the side of his throat. The interrogator went down quick. 

Corvo’s breathing was loud in his own ears. He couldn’t believe what had happened. 

He knew the tales. The Outsider offered you a gift, but it was only a disguise for the curse. The beast had been planted into his core and it ripped and tore into its enemies with abandon. 

It was only going to get worse. That’s what they said. The madness took over and left you as nothing more than a hungry, mindless animal. 

His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly even grab onto the interrogator. He dragged the man to the door, to the corner where he wouldn’t be immediately seen if someone were to enter. 

He could feel the eyes of the interrogator’s victim on his back. He couldn’t stand it. The man was dressed in a tainted blue Hunter’s coat, and the blood running down the side of his head sang to Corvo, promising great things, powers and strength. His left eye had bruised shut and he’d lost two fingers to the interrogator. Corvo could see them on the floor. 

The victim’s breathing was heavy and hoarse. But his stare was sharp. He was still very much awake and aware of Corvo’s presence. 

He wished the man would stop looking. 

Corvo grabbed for the interrogator’s pliers, still bloody from the use. With the way his hands were trembling, he nearly dropped them. They were slippery. The air smelled like copper and he was _so hungry_. He could taste bile in his mouth, but it was better than the wonderful taste of blood trying to lure him to do terrible things. He cut the Hunter’s restraints, dropping them at his feet. Then he dug out one of Joplin’s vials and tossed it to his lap. Before the man could get up or say anything, Corvo had fled the room. 

He needed to hurry now. Three of the church’s men had now been taken down and two prisoners had been released. Which meant that it was only a matter of time before someone would notice something amiss. 

He needed to find Father Campbell before his legs gave out under him. It was the only thing he could think of right now. Everything else would come afterwards. If he stopped now, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to continue further. 

If he stopped now, he feared he might turn around and go back to the interrogation room. 

He wasn’t sure whether he’d drink from the interrogator or the Hunter. Maybe both. 

He couldn’t afford to find out. 

Corvo managed to avoid people on his way to the east wing. He was constantly scanning his surroundings for signs of life, two hearts beating as one in his chest and a headache mounting in his skull. No one had yet rung any alarms, none of the churchmen looked to be on high alert yet, but Corvo knew he couldn’t trust that to remain true for much longer. From the east wing, he found a map on the wall showing the location of the office. 

Finally. Corvo hurried off towards it. 

The office itself was, of course, well-guarded. Even in his own little house, where he was the ruler, Father Campbell was terrified of traitors. 

It made him a smart man. 

Corvo could see three militant priests, armed to the teeth with pistols and swords in front of Father Campbell’s office. Two stood in front of his door while one more made rounds close by. 

He considered his options. 

With a sword on his hip, he was a dangerous opponent. 

Or at least, he had been. Six months ago. Now he was hungry and shaky and felt like his mind was slipping from his reach. He would’ve been a fool to approach an enemy in this state. 

Starting a noisy fight in front of Father Campbell’s office, in the heart of the church’s territory wouldn’t be smart either. 

He drew in a calming breath and tried to focus. 

He could throw a can of chokedust their way. Scatter them and take them out before they could fight back. But again, the noise would draw in more people and the more people he’d have to fight, the better chances the Bishop would have to run and hide. 

And he might die. 

There was also that. 

Corvo’s eyes landed on the windows. He licked his lips. 

It’d be easier to reach the Bishop’s office from the outside than it would be to take out the guards. 

Far above the streets, Corvo’s dark clothing blended well into the dark shadows cast by the roof of the building. He doubted he was visible to anyone down there on the ground. 

He passed the guards easily. They were none the wiser.

But the Bishop wasn’t alone. From behind the wall, he could spy two glowing figures. One sitting by the Bishop’s grand desk, the other standing in front of it, holding a glass. 

Curious, Corvo took a look inside. 

Geoff Curnow, Corvo recognized with shock. 

He’d always considered Captain Curnow to be a man of honor. He was quiet and reserved. Not someone Corvo could’ve ever imagined being in cahoots with a man like Campbell. 

How deep had the rot grown? How far did the betrayal go?

The Heart spiked painfully and Corvo could feel rage filling out his chest. It coursed through his veins, making his blood boil. How dared they? How could they have done such a thing? The anger was blinding in its intensity. He’d trusted the man. Trusted him to be loyal. But a larger part, a frighteningly bright part was made out of a pained feeling of personal betrayal. Indignant fury towards people that had been trusted, people who’d sworn up and down with beautiful words that they wanted what was best for the Empire. 

The rage was familiar. But not familiar enough. 

It didn’t feel like it was his. 

He wanted to sink their talons into the ribcage of the Captain for what he’d done. Pull out his heart and squeeze it until it stopped. 

“It’s such a shame too,” Campbell said. “It’s been so hectic after the death of the Empress. The forces of evil have sensed a crack in the armor of righteousness and they try to break through. I hope they find young Lady Emily soon.”

The Captain hummed in agreement. “It’s a tragedy. The city won’t last long like this.”

“Oh, don’t be so grim, Captain!” Father Campbell said. “Dunwall will rise again. We’ve faced worst odds. With our righteous fury, we will strike down the evil-doers!”

Corvo heard Captain Curnow sigh. “Speaking of,” he said. “Mind telling me why your men have been reported to attack civilians? And resisting arrest? The situation is bad enough as it is. We shouldn’t be adding to it.”

“Is that why you came all this way to my office for?” the Bishop asked. 

Corvo moved so he could look in better. Neither of the men seemed to be paying attention to him. He loaded a dart into his bow and considered his next course of action as the two discussed. He could only knock out one of them by surprise. The Captain was known for being a good shot, so it wouldn’t be smart to let him draw his pistol. But the Bishop, despite his smoking habit, had a good pair of lungs on him and three well-armed guards in close proximity. 

He’d have to be fast. He needed to break the window, shoot one of them and grab the other before the guards rushed in. 

Easier said than done. 

Corvo licked his lips and steadied his breathing. 

“Now, let’s not worry about these silly matters. Instead, drink a toast with me, Captain. Let’s toast for the health of the city and the young Lady Emily. May she be found soon!”

The Captain lifted the glass for a toast and that was when Corvo acted. 

The shattering of the glass was loud enough to be heard through the entire office building, he was sure, but the two men hardly had time to jump to their feet when Corvo had already shot the dart to the Bishop’s neck. The Bishop cried out, hand reaching for the dart, but by the time he’d pulled it out, the amnesiac had already been administered. 

In a moment’s decision, Corvo darted forward, pulling his cloak on. He watched as if in slow motion as Captain Curnow started reaching for his pistol. Color bled out of the world around them and the two hearts beat loudly in his ears as his form shifted. Slowly, Father Campbell started to fall to his knees, but before he could touch the ground, Corvo had already gotten his claws around his middle and was dragging him towards the broken window. 

The time resumed its normal pace and Corvo could hear Captain Curnow yell behind him: “A beast! Guards! Guards! A beast has captured the Bishop!”

The bang of a pistol caught his ears and the bullet hit Corvo on his wing. And yet, he could feel no pain. The lead bullet couldn’t penetrate the feathers of his form and Corvo with the Bishop was out of the office. 

Down below, he could see the churchmen running about in the rain. A warning started blaring and bullets flying. 

None of them could hurt him, he realized. 

Up in the air he was safe. 

They could, however, hurt Father Campbell. A smell of fresh blood filled the air. 

“Are you mad?” the Captain demanded far behind. “You’ll hit the Bishop!”

He needed to get out of here. Away from the Abbey and the church’s reach. Corvo dove down from the Towering District towards Commons. The further he flew, the quieter the warning blares of the church turned. They couldn’t be completely silenced, though. The ringing of the bells must’ve carried throughout the whole of Dunwall, waking up people in their homes. Lights appeared in windows. People were calling out to each other in confusion. 

Corvo didn’t take Campbell far. He just descended downwards to a lower district and found a rooftop suited for his needs. The ringing of the bells could still be easily heard from here, but it would take a while for the priests to find them. 

He dropped the Bishop to the roof and pulled off his hood. 

Losing the beastlike form, the weakness returned to his body. His knees gave out under him and he fell to the wet, dirty roof. With shaking hands, he removed the bird mask and buried his face into his hands. His whole body was shaking something awful. The two hearts were beating at different rhythms, making his chest quake with the arrythmia. And the whole time, Corvo couldn’t breathe properly. No matter how large lungfuls of air he gulped, it wasn’t enough. 

He was sure he blacked out for a moment. He lost himself. He was sitting on his knees and for a moment he wasn’t there. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but the ringing of the bells didn’t stop. 

Only when his breathing had calmed down, only when both hearts were beating as one again, did he feel like he could think even somewhat clearly. 

It’d been a while. The instinct was still there. He knew how to fight. How to protect himself. He’d been taught to handle tough situations from a very young age. 

But then he’d heard the screaming of that Hunter. And it’d been like it was _his_ skin being burned. _His_ fingers being broken. 

In that moment, he’d gladly given the beast the reins. He’d pulled back and hidden away, because the pain had been too much. He had no idea if the Hunter had deserved the treatment he’d been going through. He had no idea what the church was blaming him for. But in that moment, the pain had been too much and he’d willingly let go. 

That _couldn’t_ happen again. 

He _wasn’t_ a killer. 

But when the beast had been in control, he hadn’t cared. He’d seen something that had hurt him. So he’d been about to kill the one that had caused it. He’d lost control. 

He’d heard the stories. He knew this was how it started. 

Which meant that Corvo was on a tight schedule. He needed to find Emily before the beast would take over completely. He couldn’t stop to cry about it. He needed to keep on the move, or it would catch him before he was done.

Corvo’s legs were still shaky under him, when he forced himself back up. He squeezed his hands into fists, drew a breath through his teeth and turned to face Father Campbell. 

He was still out cold. Resting with his face smushed against a chimney, he didn’t look like that intimidating of a man. Rain had soaked through his red coat and left his bald head shiny. How could one man cause so much grief for everyone around him?

It would’ve been easy to snap his neck there and then. Corvo had the strength to do it. Or to just plunge his new blade through his heart. 

Instead, Corvo started rummaging through his pockets. He found little. A silver pocket watch. A handful of coins. He took them all. The infamous black book was hiding in his breast pocket. Corvo drew it out and flipped it open under the cover of his cloak. 

Just like Father Martin had warned him, it was written in code. To Corvo, it was nothing but gibberish. Seemingly random words and numbers strung together into nonsense sentences. He could make no heads or tails of it. If he wanted to know what the man had written there, he’d need someone to translate it for him. 

Corvo snapped the book shut. 

He didn’t know if he had time to find someone trustworthy enough to do that for him. 

Joplin might be able to help. But it would take him time to crack the code. Time Corvo didn’t have. 

The Outsider no doubt knew how to do it. 

He gritted his teeth and curled his fingers around the book. 

A dead fool was the man, who trusted the Outsider, the church said. And the Ancient Evil had cursed him badly enough as it was. 

Which left only Father Martin. 

Corvo did not find his choices to be appealing. None of them worked well. All of them could end with him dead, one way or the other, and with Emily forever lost. 

How frustrating. His hands started to shake again and he had to actively focus on breathing calmly. 

He was sure Father Martin would rather see him burnt like all the witches. There had to be a reason he’d offered to help. So, as long as he kept that in mind, he might be able to survive the deal.

Maybe. 

All he needed right now was Emily’s location. All else he could handle by himself. After he’d have that, he’d never have to interact with the priest again. 

Metal groaned behind him. 

Corvo froze where he stood, listening carefully. He could hear something climbing up ventilation pipes behind him. 

Something was approaching. And he didn’t believe in coincidences. 

He drew out his crossbow and loaded it with a sleeping dart. 

What came climbing out on the roof, though, was no human. 

The wolf wasn’t in good condition. Blood clotted his fur and covered his left eye. The fingers on his other hand looked broken, two of them missing, making it difficult for the beast to scale the building. When he rose over the side of the roof, he was snarling and showing teeth, saliva running down the side of his mouth. 

Corvo took a step back. 

The Heart in his chest gave a piercing jolt. Something akin to fear gripped at his chest. The wolf dropped down onto the rooftop and met Corvo’s stare. He opened his maw and rose to stand on his two hind legs. 

The fear morphed into pure rage. 

_Murderers! Animals! Kill them all!_

Like a horrifying beast taking over, Corvo let out and inhuman screech, his hands losing their shapes and his cloak growing to envelope him. 

The wolf jumped before his transformation was complete, aiming for the jugular. Corvo slashed forward with his half-formed wing, aiming for the eye, but only meeting fur. He was thrown against the roof and the wolf’s snapping teeth came millimeters away from his throat. 

_Kill them all! Kill them all!_

It wasn’t his rage. Well, some of it was. The wolves had climbed their way up to the Dunwall Tower and killed the Empress, but the fear he felt for the teeth on his throat, was as if he could remember them there already. 

It wasn’t his memory. The pain wasn’t his. The fear wasn’t either. 

The wolf pulled back, looking down at him. He had no trouble holding Corvo still, despite his struggles. He opened his mouth, but whatever he’d meant to say was cut off by a loud bang. 

Blood spilled from the wound on the wolf’s shoulder and he turned to look at the direction of the shooter. Another bullet flew past them, just barely missing and the wolf jumped off Corvo, spraying thick blood over him as he pulled away. He gave one last look over his shoulder at Corvo, before jumping down the side of the building and disappearing. 

Corvo stood up, unsteady on his feet. His feathered form fell from him. In his chest, he could still feel the Heart beating with fear, but the feeling was far less gripping when he turned to face the shooter. 

Father Martin lowered his pistol and gave Corvo a wide grin. 

“I’d say this means we’re even now,” he said. He holstered the pistol and wiped his hands clean on his uniform. “And here I thought all the Outsider’s beasts were equal in his eyes.” He nodded at the mask on the ground. “Better put that back on, Lord Protector.”

Corvo’s hand flew to his face and he realized it was uncovered. 

How much had the wolf seen?

…Did it matter anymore?

Corvo picked up the mask and placed it back on his face, hiding his shaky appearance. Father Martin nodded and walked to Father Campbell. Corvo, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes away from the direction the wolf had disappeared off to. He could no longer see his glowing light of life, but the wolf had left a clear trail of blood after himself. 

He might not make it far. 

But then again, beasts were hardy creatures. 

There were many kinds of beasts that lurked in the darkest corners of Dunwall. Horrifying creatures that had once been regular humans or animals, but that had been mutated by the mists from the sea. They walked the streets of Dunwall, their minds forever lost. 

But wolves were different. 

The wolves flocked together. 

“Ah, yes,” Father Martin said. “I see you realized. One of Daud’s pack. We had him captured in Commons, trying to buy poisons from a chemist. Father Campbell didn’t like the questions I was asking him, so instead he had his favorite interrogator have a go at him and put me into the stocks. To learn when to ask heretical questions and when not.” He gave it a little chuckle. “But I see he managed to escape. The Outsider must’ve been on his side this evening.”

Corvo could taste bitter acid in his mouth. 

“Did you find the book?” Father Martin asked, kneeling down next to the Bishop to try his pulse. 

Corvo tilted his head. He considered it a moment, then pulled the book out. 

Father Martin flipped through it for a moment, humming. A smile started to tug at his mouth. 

“Oh, Thaddeus,” he said. “You arrogant fool.” He lifted his eyes to Corvo. “Yes, I can decode this. Campbell used a code based on scripture. He’s not a man of imagination, you see.” He looked down at the book and leafed through it. “Hm. He really thought no one would ever get their hands on this, didn’t he?”

Corvo turned to look at Father Campbell’s crumpled form. He had half a mind to just leave him there. 

But he couldn’t really do that, could he?

He’d never been much for the political games the nobles played. He didn’t have the head for it. All he’d cared about was making sure that Jessamine was safe. But if he left Father Campbell alive, he would no doubt continue working against the Empire. Even if Corvo _did_ manage to put Emily back on the throne, Father Campbell would do his best to destroy everything she built, he was sure. 

“You know,” Father Martin said slowly. “If you’re not opposed to it, I have an idea how we can turn this on Campbell.”

Corvo turned to look at him. Father Martin had a finger on a page, but his eyes were on Corvo. 

“If you would allow me to have Campbell,” he said, “I think we could use him to our advantage.”

_Our_ , he said. Again, including Corvo in his plans. 

“The things he says here are _blasphemous_.” Father Martin’s grin gained a wicked curve to it. “With the stunt you pulled today and what he’s written here, I could easily discredit him and have his reputation ruined. If you let me keep this book, I can translate it _and_ get rid of Campbell for you.”

Corvo turned to him fully. 

That sounded too good to be true. 

What did _Father Martin_ get out of this?

The man was a hard one to read. He seemed eager enough to help, but Corvo knew better than to trust a churchman. 

Whether the man had been in stocks or not, whether he seemed to hold an interest towards the blasphemous, he was _still_ part of the corrupt religious order. 

But again, could Corvo even afford to say no? With his own hourglass steadily losing sand, he needed that information as soon as possible. 

He didn’t really have a choice in this. 

So, he nodded stiffly. 

Father Martin’s smile did not fill him with reassurance. 

”Come to me, tomorrow at midnight,” he said. “Meet me here, at the same place and same time. I’ll have the translation done by then.”

A man of the church. Corvo would’ve thought he’d rather die than make a deal with a beast such as he. He looked at the spot where the wolf had disappeared off to. Clearly Father Martin knew how to fight beasts. His bullets were tipped with silver. He could’ve shot Corvo right then and there same as the wolf and claimed his place back amongst his brothers. 

Which meant he must’ve still had use for Corvo. 

For however long that might last. 

Corvo nodded and turned his back to the man without a word. When he flew off, he could feel Father Martin’s piercing stare follow him for a long while.


	3. Rescue – The Brothers and the Brothel

The Outsider came to him when he slept. 

How the Ancient Evil had been able to find him from his hiding place, Corvo wasn’t sure. No one had followed him that night. He’d made sure of it. He’d had his eye out for churchmen and wolves alike when he’d descended back to the Lower District and climbed the window into another abandoned apartment. 

And yet, here he was, sitting on the former habitant’s desk when Corvo blinked into consciousness. Mist was flowing in through the open window and the Outsider was looking down at the city streets below. Somewhere above them a rail car rolled past, lighting the walls of the buildings for a moment and bringing light to the deathly pale face of the Father of Beasts. The moment lasted only for a fraction of a second and then the light was gone again. 

In the dark, the Outsider turned to look at him. 

“My dear Corvo,” he said. ”You’ve managed to surprise me. That does not happen often these days.”

The sun must’ve set hours ago. Corvo had slept through most of the light hours of the day, and yet he felt like he hadn’t slept a wink. He sat up slowly, throwing aside the moth-eaten blanket. If the Outsider cared for his state of undress, he didn’t say it. He just turned his eyes back on the window, his expressions remaining the same. 

“The church has built its walls out of hatred,” he said. “In the past, they sought to keep their subjects safe from the chaos of the Void. They educated and cared for the people in their flock.” The Outsider closed his eyes. Somewhere in the distance, hounds were barking. “Now, though, they feed tales to the people and harvest the fear that grows. They hunt the beasts and humans alike, growing hungrier with every life they take.”

Corvo moved to pick up the clothes he’d pilfered from the cupboard of the worker who’d lived here. The clothing was rough and tattered, but better than the rags Corvo had worn when escaping Coldridge. 

The Outsider turned to look at him. His eyes looked like bottomless doors to the Void itself. 

“They were hunting you even before you were granted my gift,” he said. “And yet you entered their house like a ghost, hiding from their eyes, freeing their prisoners and killing no one.” He tilted his head a little. “Even Campbell still lives, although he might soon find that he rather wished he didn’t.”

The Outsider was surprised, he said, yet he didn’t sound anything of the sort. His tone was still even, his expressions empty. He didn’t look like he was feeling anything at all. 

Corvo had to turn away. He could still remember the burning hunger in his veins. The thirst to rip open their throats, break their bones and tear ribbons out of their flesh. 

He had never felt such visceral need for violence before. He blamed some of it on witnessing the interrogation. But not all of it could be explained away by the terrors of his past catching up with him. 

He was no killer. Those hadn’t been _his_ wants. They were something else completely. 

_Yes_ , he’d killed before. For self-defense. To protect the Empress, to protect her daughter and her father before her. But he wasn’t a killer for personal gain. He’d made up his mind. The people behind Jessamine’s death would pay, but they would also live to suffer the consequences. They would come to regret ever taking part in the scheme and die old and miserable, knowing that their own actions were what brought them to where they were. 

They would live. Just like this cursed city, they’d survive to see another day. Corvo would make sure of it. 

The Outsider regarded him wordlessly for a moment. Corvo met his stare and waited for his verdict. 

”Fascinating,” he said. ”It appears I was right to choose you.”

Corvo stood up and picked up the Hunter’s jacket. He strapped the stolen sword to his belt, Joplin’s crossbow to his back and started pulling the boots on. 

The Outsider slid off the desk slowly, making no noise as his feet connected with the uneven floor boards. He lifted his arm to his mouth, biting down and offering it to Corvo. 

Black, thick blood trickled down from the wounds he’d left behind. Corvo looked up at him, but the Outsider’s expression hadn’t changed. 

The hunger was like flames licking at the insides of his throat. Corvo’s mouth was salivating from the sight. The stench of the blood was disgusting. And yet, his hunger was overwhelmingly strong. 

The Outsider said nothing as Corvo grabbed his arm and drank deeply. He just watched with a tilted head, eyes empty. 

“Do you think you can trust a man like Martin?”

Corvo pulled back and wiped blood from his mouth. Strength was coursing through his veins. A feeling of vigor stole away the last dregs of sleep from his mind. He looked at the Outsider. 

Of course he knew about Father Martin. Corvo shouldn’t have doubted it for a second. He licked his lips and turned away. He reached for the mask on the bedside and started playing around with its straps. 

No, he couldn’t trust Martin. The priest was planning something, of that Corvo was sure. But what that was, he couldn’t tell. The one thing he could trust, though, was Father Martin’s ambitions. And for now, those were aligned with Corvo’s. 

He had no other allies in the moment. The Outsider hardly counted. And out of all the people in Dunwall, at least Father Martin hadn’t shot him when he’d had the chance. 

It wasn’t much, but it was something. 

”Hm.” The Outsider wiped the remaining smudges of blood off his arm, leaving behind nothing but unblemished skin. ”I suppose it will be interesting to see, how it turns out.”

Corvo turned around for a second, putting his mask on, and when he turned back, the Outsider had disappeared. All that remained were the last wisps of mist fading away. 

The Outsider wasn’t an ally. The Outsider was a terrifying creature who had for some reason decided he enjoyed watching Corvo struggle. The tales of those who caught the Outsider’s interest rarely had happy endings. 

Corvo had to be quick. 

The night sky was still overcast, when Corvo climbed out of the apartment. At least last night’s raining had ceased at some point during the day, but the clouds still hung low and the air was heavy with humidity. 

In the cover of darkness, Corvo rose over the districts of Dunwall.

Everything looked so peaceful from up here. The sprawling Lower District was barely visible through the mist. Only the highest rooftops poked through like sharp rocks in a calm sea. The next largest district, Commons, was just above the mist level, barely safe from its effects. The Towering and Imperial districts were high enough to be out of reach from the filth the sea brought in, but on nights like these, the clouds surrounded the highest peaks like the Dunwall Tower completely. 

Up in the sky, late at night, when only watchmen and cutthroats prowled the streets, everything seemed so much calmer. The calamity of the world was too far below him to register. 

_We could fly_ , the Heart whispered. _Never land again._

She was getting wordier. The Heart next to his no longer felt like a foreign object, or an intrusion. His blood had warmed it enough to make it feel like it was part of his own flesh. It thumped with calm, even pulses. 

It was a beautiful thought. Flying. The Heart had twined itself around the shackles of the beast and it spoke both their thoughts out to his mind. 

They could remain up here. Out of reach. It would’ve been so easy to get lost in his own head and just… disappear. Let the beast take control and keep flying until Dunwall was nothing but a faraway speck on the horizon. Maybe they’d go back to Serkonos. Or to Pandyssia, where creatures like him would not be such a weird sight. 

It would’ve been as easy as closing his eyes and stepping back. 

_I would not despise you for it._

But he would. 

He couldn’t disappear. He couldn’t step back. Not until Emily was in safe hands again. Those hands didn’t need to be Corvo’s, but they couldn’t be Burrows’ either. 

He circled back towards the Abbey. Things had quieted down since yesterday. The bells were no longer ringing, but there were more churchmen out tonight. Militant priests armed with pistols and swords. No doubt many of them carried silver bullets with them, just in case the beast would return. 

Corvo had no interest in approaching them again. They had nothing he wanted. 

Up on the roof where he’d last seen the man, stood Father Martin, like he’d never left. 

Corvo studied him from the skies before approaching. He was standing near the edge of the roof, one hand behind his back, the other holding a cigarette to his lips. He’d changed into a clean set of uniforms, Corvo noted. The outfit of a militant priest, with golden decorations on the black sleeves, signifying logic and reason over chaos. Father Martin pulled the cigarette down and blew smoke into the wind with a thoughtful look on his face. 

Corvo landed quietly behind him and shifted back into his human form. When Corvo approached him, he made sure his steps were loud enough for him to hear. It startled Father Martin, although the man tried to hide it by shifting his shoulders and cracking his neck. He flicked the cigarette over the edge of the roof and turned to greet him. 

“There you are,” he said. “You had me waiting, Lord Protector.”

Corvo bristled at the careless use of his old title. Not that anyone knowing he still lived would’ve changed much. Still. He didn’t like Father Martin calling him that. 

“I was hoping you’d find me here,” he continued, either wholly unaware of Corvo’s distaste or choosing to ignore it. “I worked all day on Campbell’s code. It wasn’t that complicated, but the man loves to use a hundred words where ten would’ve sufficed.” Father Martin pulled the book out and flipped a few pages. “I’ve learned all sorts of interesting things about the church’s current state. So many holier than thou people. They have a tendency to drive the decent folk out.”

Corvo wondered which of the two Father Martin considered himself to be. He shifted weight from one foot to another. He didn’t much care about the internal politics of the church. It’d never been his job to understand it. He stepped closer to the man. 

The priest seemed to startle at the proximity and took a cautious step back. For one short moment, Corvo could see apprehension on his face. Father Martin managed to hide these feelings quickly enough, though. The smile stretched back and he pulled the book out of Corvo’s reach. 

“But I’m sure you’re much more interested in what he had to say about the _Empress_. Well. I’m sure you already knew that Campbell and Viceroy Burrows were behind the assassination.”

Corvo nodded his head. That wasn’t new information. 

Father Martin’s smile grew wider. “Campbell wrote here, that the Viceroy’s plan is to hold onto Lady Emily so that they can stage a rescue for her when the time is right. That way they’re going to be able to assure the nobles that _they_ should be the ones responsible for her upbringing. All in the name of their game for power.”

Corvo was not at all surprised. After the wolves had taken Emily, he’d assumed she’d been brought to Burrows and Campbell.

They must’ve been waiting for the right time to reveal her. Maybe they’d hoped the situation with the Lower District would’ve solved itself by now. Maybe they’d hoped the two of them could swoop in and claim that as their victory as well. 

What he wanted to know now was where they were keeping Emily for the time being. He took another step closer and held out his hand. 

Father Martin gave him a long look. Corvo could see the distaste he was trying to hide. He’d seen a similar look on the faces of the nobles, when Jessamine had given an order that went against their wishes. They needed to remain on her good graces, but hated the decisions she made. 

Corvo didn’t move. He stayed there, with his hand held to the priest and after a while Father Martin was forced to relent. He gave the black book back with no small amount of hesitation. Corvo started to leaf through it. 

Father Martin had left notes in the margins. There were loose pieces of paper with partially translated text there. Corvo went through the book, front and back, but couldn’t find anything concrete. 

Meanwhile, Father Martin was hovering too close to him, looking like he was moments away from trying to steal the book out of his hands. “I might have something that interests you,” he said. “If you… If you’d allow me to show you…”

Corvo lifted his eyes to the man. He was sure Father Martin realized he was being scrutinized. He tried to give Corvo what he must’ve thought was a confident smile. But this close up, Corvo could see the uncertainty seeping out of the man. 

Corvo didn’t have the time or the energy to play games with him. He let go of the book and Father Martin hurried to catch it before it fell. He righted himself and dusted the book off before turning to the right page and rotating the book around for Corvo to see. 

“Right here, Campbell mentioned the Pendleton brothers a few times. I’m sure you know them?”

Corvo crossed his arms and nodded. 

Father Martin nodded as well and turned the book right back around. 

“Of course,” he said. “Campbell wrote here that the Viceroy entrusted something important to the Pendletons to look after. And right over here,” he said, pointing a finger to the lower part of the page, “he says that they’re keeping ‘her’ in the Golden Cat. That can’t be a coincidence, right?”

Corvo certainly doubted that. His hands squeezed into fists at his sides. 

The Golden Cat. 

He had a location now. 

By the end of the day, he’d have Emily out of the Viceroy’s control. 

The Heart thrummed contently. 

“I trust you’re familiar with the establishment?” Father Martin said. “I doubt they’d intentionally plan to hurt the girl, if it truly is Lady Emily. But. A place like that. It’s not fitting for a girl of her age.” Father Martin’s grin didn’t go well together with his appalled words. “It must’ve been Campbell’s idea.” He tilted his head, studying Corvo. “I take it you’ll be making a visit there tonight?”

Corvo was indeed familiar with the place. The Golden Cat was one of the better brothels of Dunwall, located all the way in the Towering District. A popular place among the nobility and rich merchants. Corvo had heard the gossips and cared very little for them. 

Father Martin was right. It was no place for her to be in. 

Corvo gave a look at him and the book he was holding. At the attention, the priest pulled back, as if to hide the book inconspicuously. Corvo could see right through his actions, though. 

Well. If it was just the book that he wanted as a tradeoff for the information, then Corvo would gladly agree. He would have no further use for it. He gave a pointed nod at the book and the priest’s hold grew tighter on it. Corvo shook his head. 

Father Martin could have it for all he cared. He turned to leave. 

“I will continue to pour over Campbell’s words,” Father Martin said, before he could pull his wings on. “If you would allow me to.”

Corvo looked at him over his shoulder. He shrugged. 

It seemed to satisfy the priest. 

“Come to me, if you need something else, Lord Protector,” he said. “I’d be more than interested to see where this thing goes.” He gave Corvo a piercing stare. “I have no doubt that a man such as you making a deal with the Outsider will produce interesting results. I would very much like to be there see them.”

And reap the benefits, Corvo was sure. He pulled at his cloak and spread his wings. Without a word, he dropped off the side of the roof and rose to the skies. 

Towering District was small in comparison to the Commons and the Lower District. Nobility, more important church folk and rich merchants lived there with their families. But before the Lower District had fallen, they’d also had booming entertainment businesses. Concert halls and art galleries. Theaters where actors from all across the Empire came to entertain the rich. 

And then there was, of course, the Golden Cat. 

There’d been plenty of brothels on different districts before. But the Golden Cat had been the most famous one. 

And then Dunwall had been shut down. Crippling the docks had left the whole city in ruins and even the lords and ladies with the most influence had been forced to consider their finances. 

The Golden Cat had found itself without customers. 

And that had been six months ago, when Jessamine had still assured Corvo that everything would turn out alright if she could gather the nobles together. 

He had no idea how the Cat was still standing. 

Flying over to the brothel, Corvo observed what he saw. Guards on the ground level. Guards on the rooftops. In the buildings around the Golden Cat and no doubt inside the brothel as well. He’d known the place to be heavily guarded. The clientele required it. But this was excessive. 

Had his visit to the Abbey yesterday perhaps frightened the Viceroy? The man had always been paranoid. It was what had made him a good Spymaster. 

But now Corvo couldn’t just fly in blind and pick up Emily. He would get shot at and in the chaos, the Pendletons could smuggle away Emily and Corvo would be set back to square one again. He’d never been to the Golden Cat before. He didn’t know what the place was like inside. He needed time. 

And that meant he couldn’t just barge in and make his presence known. 

He needed to think. His circle around the brothel’s grounds grew wider. The Towering District disappeared from under him. 

If Father Martin’s word was to be believed, Father Campbell hadn’t been too wordy about Emily’s location. Which might’ve just meant he didn’t know the details. She was being kept somewhere on the Golden Cat property, but the exact location was uncertain. 

The Madam ought to know, Corvo thought. A woman like that would know everything going on around her establishment. 

He would have to find either her, or one of the Pendleton brothers. There were three of them, as far as he could recall. And a large collection of lesser cousins, of course. But the twins were the head of the family. 

His circle started to pull him back towards the Golden Cat. The edges of the Towering District appeared under him again, but the nerves didn’t dissipate. 

Last night’s near catastrophe still weighed heavy on him. 

And he worried. 

It was unlikely anything of the sort would happen again. It was the interrogator’s torture that had triggered it the last time. The blind panic. The willing withdrawal that had allowed the beast to nearly take control. 

He doubted very much something like that would happen at a high-brow brothel. 

But at the same time…

As he flew towards the Cat again, he got the uncomfortable feeling he was being watched. 

It couldn’t be. It was impossible. He looked around, but could see no one else around. He was high enough not to look suspicious from the ground, so it had to be just his nerves talking. Even with his vision he could not see anything out of the ordinary in the dark. 

But the feeling wouldn’t leave. It made his insides squeeze and his breathing catch short. Coldness swept over him. He rose higher until he reached the cover of the clouds. Beating his wings even harder, he pierced through them, above the heavy covers and out of sight from the city below. 

The world out here was quieter. He was so far above the noisiness of Commons and the Towering District that it was almost like he was in a world of his own. He flew in a zone between two masses of clouds, in an empty, dark space of nothingness. 

Up here, it was nearly impossible to keep track of the districts below. With each downwards strike, his wings brushed against the clouds, but Corvo had no desire to go back down. 

It was easier here. The paranoia lessened. The squeezing around his lungs laxed. 

Up here, nothing could reach him. 

_Corvo_ , the Heart whispered. The sound was soothing. 

He missed Jessamine so much. Corvo had lived all his life as a pawn to other people’s games, doing what they demanded of him. From a very young age. And he hadn’t minded, most of the time. The old Emperor had been kind enough to him. 

But with Jessamine, it’d been different. With Jessamine, he’d known she would never ask of him what he wasn’t willing to offer. With her, he’d known that what she asked for was always for the greater good. For the good of both Dunwall and the Empire itself. She’d never sought to make him dirty his hands in her stead. She’d been just. She’d been kind. 

With her, he’d known how to be a good person. 

And then he’d failed her. She’d given her life into his hands and he’d allowed the beasts to reach her. 

Dressed in the clothing and masks of Hunters, the wolves had broken into her chambers and left her dying in his arms. 

He’d held her as the last of her blood spilled on his hands and he’d known it’d been his fault. 

If he’d been just a little bit faster. Stronger. Better prepared. But he had thought the stories about the beasts to be just old wives’ tales. 

Everyone in Dunwall knew Daud by name. He’d been a boogeyman, just like the Lady of Rats. The Hound of Dunwall. A beast that roamed the Lower Districts and only climbed up to kill people in exchange for money. 

Another beast of the Outsider’s creating. 

If Corvo had been more careful. If he’d been more mindful. He should’ve sent someone else out to run Jessamine’s errands on the other isles and stayed by her side. Maybe then he could’ve learnt about the betrayal and stopped the wolves before they could reach her. 

_Corvo._

He closed his eyes. 

Wallowing in pity wasn’t going to bring her back. What was done was done. And all he could do was to try to fix things in the world he lived in now. 

A sorrow that wasn’t fully his gripped his chest and made his breath shudder. 

The past couldn’t be changed. What they could affect was the present. The future. And it would start with Corvo rescuing Emily. He’d take her to hide out in the Lower District, where he could come up with the next part of the plan. 

He started his descent, gliding into the clouds. The cold mist swirled around his wings as he broke through the covers. Dunwall remained unchanged. He circled around a clocktower, taking in the cityscape to find himself. Then he headed west, gliding over the river. 

The feeling of being watched returned soon after. Corvo surveyed the streets below, but they were too far down for him to see anyone specific. 

Then he spotted movement on the roof nearby. 

There was a man standing there. Corvo looked down and the man in red looked up at him. 

Corvo recognized him. The Hunter’s jacket. The scar across his face. 

_Daud._

His chest was pierced by a pain so deep he nearly fell off his wings. The pain was soon followed by a rage far deeper. He let out an enraged scream, pulling his wings to his sides and falling down into a dive. In his eyes, he saw nothing but red. Red blood, red coat, red rage. He wanted to tear! He wanted to rip! He was going to pull out his beating heart!

Daud stepped off the side of the roof, falling out of sight. And by the time Corvo’s claws reached the spot he’d last seen the man on, there was no sign of him. His talons sunk into the roof tiles, ripping them off when he jumped to his wings and swept down towards the streets. 

He was gone. As if he’d never been there to begin with. 

But he was sure he’d seen him! So sure! The sharp beating of the Heart agreed with him. 

An enraged screech tore out of his beak and when he beat his wings downwards, a strong gust of wind blew from them, cracking windows. 

It was like a splash of cold against his face. He climbed up back to the sky. 

He… he hadn’t meant to get that angry. 

He climbed higher again, reaching the lower edges of the clouds. The anger was soon switched to cold worry. He hadn’t thought himself to be capable of rage that burned so scorching. When Jessamine had been killed, he’d been angry, yes, but more than that, he’d felt so empty inside. Withdrawn and mute. He’d lost the last of the few words he’d held and pulled back into his shell, intent on dying in it. 

The rage burnt brighter than anything he’d ever felt in his life. 

It reminded him of Jessamine. How strong her emotions had run when no one had been there to witness it. How she’d burned brighter than any star, fierce and unforgiving. 

The beating of the strange Heart in his chest was sharp and painful. The dredges of the anger drained away, pulled back in and Corvo landed on a roof, far from the one he’d seen Daud on. He pulled his hands free and gripped at his chest. 

The anger in him wanted Daud dead. Daud and the rest of his beasts. He knew Daud had only been the knife that befell on Jessamine and the hand that had held it had been Burrows’. But the angry part in him didn’t care. The angry part in him could still feel the teeth sinking into their throat. 

Corvo curled down, hugging his chest. 

The angry part wasn’t fully his. But it wasn’t fully hers either. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, his voice broken and raw. 

He wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t cold-hearted and he wasn’t searching for revenge. 

That was the reason Jessamine had trusted him. She’d known he would be a voice of reason, even if a quiet one. He wouldn’t do what was demanded of him if it went against his beliefs and Jessamine would never demand it. 

The anger lessened, giving way for grief. 

_It was so short_ , the Heart whispered. _There were so many things I wanted to achieve._

Corvo could understand it. There were many things he would’ve wanted her to achieve as well. Dunwall had been at its best under her rule, just before the weepers had appeared and they’d lost the Lower District. 

There was nothing they could do about it now. All they could focus on was getting Emily out. Everything else could come afterwards. 

With Daud gone, Corvo took flight again, heading for the Golden Cat instead of chasing after the beast. Reaching the second highest district, he circled around the brothel again, studying the people below. With the threat of rain hanging ever heavier in the air, some of the guards had retreated in. A lot of them were still out and about, though none of them looked too bothered. There’d been no ringing bells to warn them of approaching beasts, no rowdy customers to throw out, or penniless people banging to get in. For them, it was just another quiet night at the Cat. 

Corvo would rather it stayed that way. 

He spied an empty building near the Cat. An old apartment building that had been abandoned when the business had died down, perhaps. Or an office that had been emptied out. Either way, the doors to the balcony were open and it was high enough not to be seen from the outside. He landed on the balcony, entered the building and shed his beastly form. 

He ought to try to approach the brothel from the rooftops. Less guards around there that way. He had a handful of sleep darts that could buy him some time unnoticed. 

Then, all he had to do was find one of the people in the know. 

Easy as can be. 

As he started to approach the stairwell, though, he realized he could hear hurried steps climbing towards him. Blinking his eyes, he could see a man hurrying up and pulled back into the apartment. 

He drew out his sword and hid behind and emptied out bookshelf. The door into the apartment was thrown open and someone stumbled in. He heard the man stop and look around, breath wheezing in his throat. 

“Hello?” the man called. “Are you in here? Martin told me you’d be here tonight.”

Corvo gritted his teeth. Only a day later Father Martin had already betrayed his trust. He wasn’t surprised exactly. Just disappointed. 

He stepped out from behind the bookshelf, sword held high. 

”No, no wait!” the man pleaded, backing off with his hands held up. Lord Treavor Pendleton was a weaselly looking man. Scrawny and miserable in his beige suit. He had watery eyes and wide ears and he looked terrified to be there. “I’m not your enemy! I also wish to see the Empress’ daughter on the throne! This is no place for a child like that. I wish to make a deal with you!”

Behind his mask, Corvo bared his teeth. So Father Martin had sent this sniveling noble to him, promising a deal with a beast of the Outsider’s. He’d thought he could just sell Corvo’s services to whoever?

A sock in Lord Pendleton’s mouth would be better than any deal he could offer. It would silence him nicely as well. Corvo drew closer and the man backed away until his back hit the wall. 

”My brothers!” the man said. ”Morgan and Custis! They’re holding the girl here! I can offer you information.”

Corvo stopped. He tilted his head, watching the man. He was trembling like a leaf in a storm, hands held in front of him as if they could protect him from Corvo. But seeing the masked man stop had Lord Pendleton relaxing. His hands dropped to his sides and he slumped against the wall. 

“In exchange,” he said, “will you kill my brothers for me?”

Of course. The poor noble. Youngest of the family, no doubt, and therefore not the one to inherit all the wealth. What a sad and hopeless man he was. Corvo could smell the stench of alcohol on him from across the room. 

He was no killer. Not even for Jessamine and definitely not for some bastard of a noble he cared nothing for. He lifted his crossbow. 

”They were in on it!” the man cried out. ”They helped kill the Empress! They’ve ruined my life! They deserve to die!”

The dart hit the side of his neck, ending his sentence in a high-pitched squeal and the man slumped down against the wall. Corvo plucked the dart off and straightened him up, so he wouldn’t wake up with his neck sore. 

Corvo could no longer trust Father Martin. If this was the way the man thanked him only a day after meeting him, Corvo would be better off not seeing him again at all. 

Who knew what the priest would leak in search for his own gratification? It was better to just cut off everyone else for now. 

He reached the Golden Cat through the rooftops. He had to take down three guards to make it inside, which meant that he was on a tight schedule now. At some point, someone would notice three guards missing, they would go looking and might find the men clumped together behind a folding screen in the attic. 

The Pendletons were being entertained in their own rooms and where they stayed, the guards were at their thickest. The madam, on the other hand, was all by herself in her office, taking a smoke break in front of an open window and muttering to herself. 

Taking her out was easy as well. Corvo left her slumped on her chair as he poured over her books. 

Amateurish mistakes. Leaving paper trails like that. Sometimes Corvo wondered what went on in these people’s minds. Did they think they’d never be caught? They were housing the kidnapped daughter of the Empress here during the times when the things in the Empire were at their direst. And they thought they’d never be caught? 

Although, it didn’t seem like the madam had actually known who it was the Pendletons had brought in to be kept here. Not that it made things any better. The madam had Emily locked up in the attic, where some of the escorts slept during the day. 

He returned back to the attic the same way he’d come in. It was the easiest way. There were no guards there to catch him, no wandering eyes to spot him. There were no other living, conscious humans on the attic floor other than him and the small, huddled form behind a locked door. In his inhuman form, breaking the flimsy wood was child’s play, like the door was nothing but cardboard under his claws. 

The sounds he was making ought to have drawn the attention of the guards. They should hurry. 

He ducked to enter the tiny room and saw Emily, crouched behind an overturned table in the very back corner of the room. 

Seeing her filled his chest with warmth. The Heart behind his ribs was quivering with relief seeing their daughter alive and well. 

The shocked look in her eyes had both of them freezing, though. 

She was looking at Corvo and she was terrified. As Corvo attempted to move closer, she huddled down further, letting out an ear-piercing scream. 

Corvo stopped, momentarily. The Heart was starting to beat faster, something akin to panic blocking his airways. 

“Emily,” he tried to say, but the only thing that came out of his beak was a strangled croak. He hadn’t realized. He was still in his beast form. He was still nothing but a horrifying creature of the night knocking on her door. 

He took a stumbling step back as Emily threw something at him. A porcelain plate that shattered upon impact with the doorway. After it, she threw her silverware, barely missing. 

He had to shift back. He had forgotten. But now he could feel terror gripping at his chest. Emily had never looked at him like that before. Never.

He stepped back on the silver fork and felt pain coursing through his nerves, like he’d been stabbed. A shriek escaped his beak, shaking the foundations of the whole brothel. Emily screamed harder, hands over her ears. 

He had to shift back. She would understand –! She had to –!

The fear got the better of him. It had him beating his wings with enough strength to send gusts through the corridor. With enough strength to shake the walls. He stumbled to a window and hopped off, taking flight and making it higher above the city, above the clouds. 

The panic gripped him tight, drowning out reason. It rattled him, leaving him gasping. His wings faltered and he fell. 

_Corvo_ , the Heart whispered.

He could barely even hear it over the rapid beating of his own heart. It was drowning out everything else. It was pulling him towards the ground with a force that was going to kill him. 

_Corvo_ , the Heart said, steadier this time. _Allow me._

It was like slipping into mist. He closed his eyes and suddenly he was no longer in control. But it wasn’t quite like allowing the mindless beast guide him either. His wings steadied under him. They were more uncertain than they’d been under his control, but they moved as if on their own. His mind was ringing empty and he no longer steered their flight. 

The landing wasn’t soft. It was rough and threw him on his side on a rooftop somewhere over Commons. For a moment all he could do was lie down there, breathing erratically, the sound wheezing in his ears. His feathers receded and he ripped the mask off his face. 

His sobs were harsh and hopeless, torn right out of his lungs. It hurt, but he couldn’t stop. Clutching his chest, he heaved like he was going to be sick all over the roof. 

Emily hadn’t recognized him. The look of terror on her face had been unbearable. He couldn’t stand it. He was a monster. He’d become the beast of nightmares. Like the wolves that had taken her mother from her, he’d been turned into something inhuman. 

He was losing his grip. He could feel it. He couldn’t breathe properly and he could feel the beast just beneath the surface, clawing at its shackles. The Heart held it in place, but only barely. 

Corvo dug his fingers into his hair, pulling with enough force to rip tufts off. It didn’t help. Nothing would. 

He’d panicked. If he’d just shifted back into his human form, it would’ve been fine. If he’d shown Emily, that it was him…

But he’d panicked. And the animal had taken control. 

Corvo squeezed his eyes shut, tears running down. 

_Corvo. Corvo._

“I’m… sorry,” he gasped, his voice weak and broken. He barely even spoke these days. He’d screamed his throat raw, bitten into his tongue and swallowed down words at Coldridge and now he felt like he had nothing more to say. But the broken apologies tumbled out for no one to hear. He dug his nails into his scalp, shuddering for breath. 

“Aren’t you a sorry sight.”

Corvo’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice. It wasn’t the Heart. It wasn’t a voice that only he could hear, but one that carried over the still night air, cold and aggressive. In his blind panic, he hadn’t looked where he’d landed. Hadn’t looked if there’d been anyone else around there to see. 

Before he could gather himself enough to take flight again, something was thrown over him. It caught to his arms, around his legs and burned where it touched the skin of his bare cheek. He let out a weak yell of pain and fell to the ground as the silver net grew tighter around him. 

He tried to catch it to pull it off, but the silver burned his hands, leaving angry red welts where he’d touched it. 

The panic started to roil again. 

He heard the boots before he saw the man attached to them. Daud approached him carefully, keeping a distance between them as he spoke. 

“Look at you, bodyguard,” he said. “I’d considered seeking you out myself. _This_ wasn’t what I thought I’d find.”

Corvo gritted his teeth together, hiding his hands under the cloak. But he couldn’t shift. No matter how he tried, his form remained the same. The silver couldn’t hurt him if it didn’t touch him, but at the same time, it was keeping him trapped. 

The Heart was going wild in his chest. 

A hiss escaped his mouth. 

Daud stopped. His expression was hard to read. His brows were furrowed and he was standing sideways to Corvo, like he didn’t want to face him fully. 

“Look at you,” he repeated and his tone was difficult to decipher as well. He almost sounded _disappointed_. “From the protector of the Empress to… _this_.” He waved his hand at Corvo’s hunched form. “A _monster_. You can feel it too, can’t you? The hunger. It never really goes away, does it? Thought you’d be smarter than to make a deal with the Outsider.”

Corvo snarled at him, half of it his own frustration, the other half the Heart’s burn seeking a way to express itself. He tried to rise to his feet, but Daud’s boot landed on his back and forced him back down on the ground. 

“No use trying, bodyguard,” he said. “That chain is silver. You won’t be changing any time soon.”

The fear clutching at his throat was making it difficult to see. Difficult to _think_. He needed to get free! Out! _He needed to get out!_

Daud’s frown grew deeper. 

“Are you even in there anymore?” he asked. 

_Kill him! Rip him apart! Drink him dry!_

Corvo pressed his hand against his face and tried to swallow the whine climbing up his throat. 

_Leave him to rot! Rats will eat his entrails! Crows will peck clean his bones!_

He wanted the Heart to shut up. He wanted it to be quiet. He wanted it to be over!

“Bodyguard?”

The moment the boot lifted, Corvo rolled. Blinded by the mixture of panic, bloodlust and pain, he managed to hit Daud with his body enough to make him stumble back. The only idea he had was to chuck off the cloak from his back. It cluttered to the ground with the silvery net stuck to it. Corvo felt naked without it, weak and frail from months in Coldridge. 

It was laughably easy for Daud to kick him back down to the ground. Corvo was shaking like crazy, clawing at his boot as it pressed down to the center of his chest. He didn’t even have enough of a mind to reach for a weapon. 

Daud looked down at him with that strange look of his. Corvo could see the gleam of the blade in his hand and his scrambling grew all the wilder. 

But Daud made no move to strike. 

“I should just put you down,” he said. ”Cut you out before you get too powerful. Don’t want another Granny running about.” 

He sounded resigned. Corvo stilled and looked up at him. Against the lightless sky, he was nothing more but a terrifying shadow. The sword in his hand flinched, but it didn’t land on Corvo’s throat. 

“I should…” he said, then fell silent again. 

For a moment, neither of them moved. All Corvo could feel was the painful beating of the Heart against the boot pushing him down. 

Daud sighed and pulled back. 

“You know what?” he said. “If you’ve still got any humanity left, come find me. Take your revenge for your Empress. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Come find me.”

He pulled back, sneering at him. 

“And if there’s no sanity left in you, I’ll hunt you down myself. It’ll be a kinder death than the church will give you.”

With that, Daud turned around and jumped off the side of the roof. He left Corvo behind, shivering in the cold, dead night.


	4. Allies – The Loyalist Conspiracy

Corvo needed answers. 

He was still feeling shaky, but at least he was in the air again, where he felt a little safer. It was easier to think when he was above the clouds. It was safer there. Nothing could reach him this far up. Not Burrows’ men, not the church or Daud and his wolves. 

The ground was unsafe. For him, for Jessamine, for Emily. There was _no one_ he could trust down there. 

He couldn’t trust Father Martin, not after he’d so clearly sold him out. 

He couldn’t trust the Outsider. A fool would. No one knew what a creature like that wanted. He was chaos and Void incarnate and he’d gifted his curse both to the man who’d killed the Empress and the man who’d supposed to protect her. Discord was his only goal and for that, a man like Corvo could be sacrificed without batting an eye. 

He’d _thought_ he could trust Daud to be a danger. The man should’ve killed Corvo where he stood. Corvo had been weak and at his mercy, yet he’d left him alive and issued a challenge. 

Even the Heart in his chest couldn’t be trusted. It was too volatile. It spoke the desires of the beast in the voice of Jessamine, looking to twist him around.

It’d been awfully quiet since Daud had left. The silver still stung under his feathers, but the ache was slowly fading, yet the Heart remained silent. Corvo would rather it stayed that way. The violent urges it had fed to his mind had nearly ripped him to pieces. 

For a moment there he’d been sure that had there been no net between them, Corvo would’ve tried to kill Daud. 

He hadn’t wanted to. But _something_ in him had. 

The Heart said nothing to that. 

So, he needed answers. He needed clarity. And he didn’t know where he might find something like that. 

Some part of him wanted to find the Outsider. Not that he could expect to get straight answers out of him. Not that he could trust a word that came out of his mouth. 

But…

He just wanted _someone_ to be there. 

And like summoned by that though alone, he felt a tug at the center of his being. Gliding downwards, Corvo broke through the clouds and back into the drizzling and grey world underneath. The sun was rising already, but through the thick cover of clouds, it was difficult to tell. 

He followed the tugging of his heart down past the other three Districts. Looking at the world through sepia, he could see glowing people and animals fly past him as he descended. 

When he finally got the Outsider in his sights, he did not glow like every other living being around him. Through his vision, the Outsider was as dead as the world around him, hands behind his back and an empty look on his face. 

Corvo stumbled when he landed. Standing on the balcony of an abandoned apartment building, the Outsider was unflinching as Corvo nearly collided with him. Shifting back to his human form, Corvo’s whole body was still trembling like crazy. 

“You’re shaken,” the Outsider said. “And hungry.” He lifted his sleeve, cutting into the flesh beneath with his nails. Thick blood dribbled past his elbow, but Corvo made no move towards it. As the beast inside whined and begged to have a taste, he remained still. 

“I’m offering it to you,” the Outsider said. “For free.”

Corvo looked away. 

The Outsider rolled his sleeve back down, caring little as his tainted blood started to absorb into the fabric. 

“You seem dissatisfied with your gift,” he said. “And yet you came all this way to find me. Why?”

Why indeed? Corvo leaned against the wall, unable to fully carry his own weight. 

The Outsider regarded him wordlessly for a moment. 

“My gift,” he started slowly, “does not make one a monster. My gift does not force the hand that wields it. It reveals the true wants of the heart and amplifies them. It is just that often times you fail to realize what you want until you have the power to take it.”

Corvo doubted very much he’d wanted to be a killer. He doubted he wanted to feast on living things. 

Yes, he wanted Daud to pay for what he’d done. 

But he _didn’t_ want to rip him to pieces and leave him to rot. 

The Heart gave a few faster pumps in his chest and Corvo lifted his hand to it. 

The Outsider smiled. It was a thin little thing. 

Corvo’s fingers curled over it. It wasn’t _his_ lust for revenge that fueled the fire. 

He thought back to the moment not hours earlier. When Daud had had his boot on his chest and the panic had been nearly enough to make him go blind. When Daud had challenged him to find him. 

He had not wanted that. 

But the Heart had. 

“Daud was interesting, once upon a time,” the Outsider said, drawing Corvo’s attention away from his thoughts. “Young and strong. He cleaved the night like a knife. He shared his gift forward. But then he grew boring. Endless death. Nobles, churchmen, watchmen, whoever was paid to die and whoever got in the way.” The Outsider studied the horizon. From here, they could just barely see the sea. ”It became quite predictable.”

Corvo doubted he could remain unpredictable all his life either. 

The Outsider looked at him over his shoulder. 

”No one does, forever,” he said. ”The golden age of a person is fleeting.” He turned back to the scenery. ”And what you humans enjoy doesn’t always amuse me.” He remained quiet for a moment, hands behind his back. ”Now, though, Daud is teetering on the edge. Killing your Empress broke him. His second in command smelled the weakness and tried to take a bite out of him, but she had second thoughts. And now he’s nothing but a husk.” A small smile graced his lips, thin and barely there, lacking any actual humor. “He wants to blame me. But the violence he wielded was always his own. I just gave him the knife.”

That didn’t remove the partial blame from the Outsider. Had he not given his curse to Daud, he wouldn’t have had the strength to get where he was now. 

The Outsider tilted his head back and studied Corvo. 

“I wonder,” he said slowly, “what you will do.” It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t expecting an answer out of Corvo. “Will you seek Daud out and give him the death he so deeply desires?”

Was that what Daud wanted? A death? Corvo grimaced. The Heart was burning. It was quieter now, but the hatred was still there. _Rip him to pieces_ , it whispered, more uncertain now. A part of him wanted the man to suffer. 

But an even bigger part of him wanted to give him nothing he wanted. If Daud wanted to die so bad he’d challenge Corvo into a fight, he could damn well do the deed himself. 

The Heart was quiet at that. 

He didn’t have time to waste on someone like Daud. Yes, the man was to blame for a lot of this. But he wasn’t what was important right now. 

Corvo still needed to find Emily. 

After how he’d blundered at the Golden Cat, Corvo doubted Emily would be at the brothel anymore. Burrows might’ve been a coward, but he was no idiot. And that made a dangerous combination. 

Emily could be anywhere now. The Viceroy might’ve even decided to speed up the process and start up the act that he’d found and rescued the Empress’ daughter himself. 

Corvo wouldn’t allow that to happen. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t let Emily be tossed around like a pawn. It wasn’t a role she would enjoy playing. 

The problem was that he didn’t know what to do. He was all alone and Dunwall was a sprawling city, with thousands of dirty, dark corners, where people could disappear to. And Corvo felt lost. There was a hollow pit at the bottom of his stomach, threatening to swallow him whole. 

He’d failed, when he hadn’t stopped Daud from reaching Jessamine. 

He’d failed a second time, when he’d ran instead of capturing Emily. 

He didn’t know if he could do this. 

The Outsider stared at him, unblinking. 

”Perhaps you should try asking help from your allies,” he said. ”People better in the know of what goes around in this city.”

Allies. What allies? Corvo was alone in this world, with no one he could rely on. 

The Outsider tilted his head. 

Corvo looked down. 

The only person he could think of, was Father Martin. But the man couldn’t be trusted. 

”Teague Martin finds himself as the current head of the church,” the Outsider said. “Now that Campbell has been sentenced for his worship of the profane, Martin holds the very short leashes of the church’s leaderships. He has power over them and he’s willing to use that to his advantage.” The Outsider turned his attention back to the streets below. A pair of weepers was shuffling down it, wholly disinterested of the cold rain trying to beat them down. “But he is the type of a man who’s never been satisfied with having his finger in just one pie.” The Outsider gave Corvo a sideways glance. “The company he’s keeping these days is… surprisingly revolutionary.”

Corvo turned to look at him. The Outsider looked back for a moment, before looking away again. 

Why was he being so helpful?

A grin that wasn’t quite a grin at all spread wide on his face, showing sharp teeth. There was very little actual joy in his black eyes. 

“It would be a shame,” he said, “if the humans in their endless stupidity ended up killing each other over something like this. What would I eat, if all of you were gone? Where would I find my entertainment in an empty world, Corvo? What do you think?”

Corvo took a step back. For a moment, it’d felt like he was having a conversation with another person. A weird conversation, but a conversation all the same. But now that he was looking at the creature next to him, he was reminded just how little humanity the Outsider had left in him. Hell, maybe he’d never been human to begin with. 

The teeth disappeared behind his lips, but the smile remained. The Outsider looked dead inside, yet here he still stood. 

“They call themselves the Loyalists,” he said. “A man by the name of Admiral Havelock has gathered them. They are not happy with the Viceroy’s rule and would gladly put the Empress’ daughter on the throne instead. They’ll be meeting together tomorrow night in a house in the abandoned side of the Towering District. If you’re interested.”

And Corvo definitely was. He nodded his head, in agreement and thanks. The next time he looked at the Outsider’s direction, he was no longer there. 

Corvo felt tired to the bone. The night had been a long and tumultuous one. But he wasn’t done yet. Before he could go and rest for the day, he needed to go to Joplin’s and replenish his collection of sleep darts. 

He had a feeling he should also buy more silver tipped arrows. Just in case. 

Joplin let him in without much of a fuss. He just seemed interested in finding out how well the mask had worked. He took Corvo’s nods and head shakes as enough of a response and took the empty darts Corvo brought him. With the money he’d pilfered from the guards at the Golden Cat and from the various apartments he’d slept in, he bought as many sleep darts as he could. 

The hunger was growing stronger and towards the end of it, Corvo could no longer hear a word Joplin was saying. The only thing he heard was the beating of his heart just beneath his skin. 

He was quick to leave after that. Joplin let out a surprised yelp when Corvo just flew off suddenly. 

It was rude. But it was better than drinking the man dry. 

Returning back towards the Lower District, Corvo became aware that he had a figure tailing him. A lone man was jumping from rooftop to rooftop to follow him. Corvo tried to pay no attention to it, but the man was dressed in the coat of a Hunter and he was pretty sure it was a wolf. 

The Heart knew this too. The thrumming in his chest is full of uncertainty. Corvo tried to drown it out by speeding up. The only thing that he needed to focus on right now was that the wolf tailing him wasn’t wearing red and wouldn’t be able to do anything to Corvo, if he couldn’t reach him. 

The building he found for himself for the day was an old butcher’s shop. The smell of the place was appalling. Months old carcasses had been gnawed to pieces and all that remained were rat droppings. And big, fat, sluggish rats. 

Their blood wasn’t as good as the blood of a human would’ve been. It didn’t fill him up quite right. But the hunger was quieted down enough that he could fall asleep. The smell of the shop should keep the wolves from sniffing him out for a few hours at least. 

Just as the last rays of sun disappeared behind the city, Corvo’s eyes cracked open again. They were dry and his body felt listless. He felt like he was thinner than he was supposed to be and while he‘d been sleeping, the hunger had returned. Corvo could almost feel the beast, just beneath the surface, rattling at its shackles and ruffling its feathers. It hungered and the hunger made Corvo’s eyes hazy. 

There were no more rats in the building. They’d disappeared while he was asleep. So, Corvo uncapped one of the two remaining elixir bottles from Joplin and drank it down. The taste of blood was watered down, but no less bitter. 

And it hardly even dulled the blade of the hunger. 

It wasn’t _alive_ enough. 

When Corvo left the butcher’s shop, he realized the smell had sunk its claws into him and now clung to his frame. When he shifted to draw out his wings, the stench of death remained. 

He didn’t have the energy to care. 

The pack of hounds he found was a small one. The animals were sickly and in poor condition. They hardly even put up a fight. 

That wasn’t enough to quench the thirst fully either. But it would carry him for a few hours longer. 

_Corvo_ , the Heart whispered. 

Corvo pretended like he couldn’t hear. 

The wolf tailing him was back. Or at least it was dressed in a similar, dark blue coat. Corvo knew the wolf knew he’d spotted him. And yet, the wolf seemed to care very little of this. He followed after Corvo in his human form and Corvo was pretty sure the Hunter wasn’t alone. 

It was going to be a problem, then. A problem he’d have to try to take care of before he went to try to find Father Martin and his Loyalists. 

He dove down deep, going all the way back to the Lower District. Through his vision, he watched the wolf follow downwards as well. Going nearly at ground level, Corvo started weaving past the buildings, into the alleyways with tighter corners. And all the while, he kept the Hunter in his sights. The Hunter attempted to stay on his trail but his movements were getting more and more uncertain as Corvo weaved. 

And then the Hunter stopped, looking around. Corvo had managed to lose him. 

He shifted back into his human form and approached the man from behind. 

A mistake. He heard the man sniffing the air just before Corvo was at a striking distance. The Hunter turned around, wristbow held up and the arrow just barely missed Corvo as he lunged down. The Hunter let out an inhuman snarl, his nails growing longer, curling into claws. 

Before he could fully transform and hide behind his thick fur, Corvo shot a dart at his arm. The half-formed wolf yelped in surprise and pulled the dart off, looking at it as if it confused him. He looked up at Corvo, who was already retreating back. The dart fell from his limp fingers and the Hunter dropped to his knees. 

Corvo was already up in the air, trying to see if there were other Hunters around. 

He could see no one at the moment. 

He didn’t know if he could trust that to remain the truth for long, though. He needed to hurry, before they could reach him. 

The building the Loyalists used as their meeting spot wasn’t at all difficult to find. Most of the buildings in the walled off area of the Towering District were still standing and even though some hounds and rats roamed the streets, the only human sized creatures Corvo could see through his vision were the three people and their guards outside. 

He landed above them and for a while just listened to them talk. 

“ – sent me to a _monster_ ,” he heard the shrill voice of Lord Treavor Pendleton. “I could’ve been _killed!_ ”

“Now, now,” Father Martin said. “I doubt the Lord Protector would’ve harmed you. You just have… a certain kind of attitude that makes you hard to approach, Treavor. Did you ask him nicely? Or demand him to do as you wanted?”

“I didn’t have _time_ to think about it, he came at me with a _sword!_ In _bloodied clothing!_ He reeked like the _sewers!_ ”

Hmh. If that had been a bad smell for the man, Lord Pendleton probably wouldn’t like the stench Corvo was carrying on him now. 

He supposed it was time to put that theory into a test. 

Corvo entered through a window, just behind Lord Pendleton. That way, he got a good view of Father Martin and the Admiral next to him. Father Martin’s breath caught in his throat when he realized they had company. That made the Admiral lift his head up as well and Lord Pendleton whirl around on his feet. 

”Guards!” the frightened noble shouted. “ _Guards!_ ”

Father Martin waved his hands around wildly to keep him from shouting any louder. 

“Lord Pendleton, please!” he said, before turning to Corvo. “Lord Protector! I’m surprised to see you.”

After he’d sold him out to the youngest Pendleton brother, he ought to be. Under his mask, Corvo scowled at him. Father Martin’s face scrunched up a little and he gave a polite cough. 

Lord Pendleton wasn’t quite as polite about it, digging out a handkerchief and pressing it up against his nose. 

“What is that _god awful_ smell?” he demanded to know. 

“Lord Pendleton,” Father Martin scolded him, his tone mockingly kindhearted. “Do not speak the Lord’s name in vain.”

Behind the small table the three of them had been sitting around, Admiral Havelock was rising up slowly. Out of the three of them, he was the least bothered by the smell. 

“That, my friends,” he said, “is the stench of _death_.” He walked up to Corvo and sized him up and down. He was a stout man, built like a brickhouse. After a moment’s consideration, he offered a hand to Corvo. “And that, I think, is _exactly_ what we need right now.”

Corvo did not take the hand being offered to him. Admiral Havelock assumed he was a killer. Maybe he even assumed Corvo was no longer human. At least he didn’t take Corvo’s refusal to shake his hand personally, just grinned and reached to clap him on the shoulder instead. 

Corvo bristled under his touch. 

“You can’t be serious,” Lord Pendleton said. “That thing is a beast. It won’t help us. It probably doesn’t even understand what we’re saying.”

Corvo was slow to turn his eyes on the man. It seemed to unnerve the noble. 

Next to him, Father Martin hid his amusement poorly. 

“Now, now, Lord Pendleton,” he said. “You shouldn’t speak in such a bad manner about a man who is currently in our company. That’s just poor manners. I thought those were important amongst your ilk.”

Lord Pendleton looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. He sniffed his nose, then reached to pat his pockets before he found a flask and took a long swig out of it. 

Admiral Havelock seemed to care very little about the bickering between the two. His attention was on Corvo now. 

“I’ve heard Martin talk about you,” he said. “And I think our goals could align.”

Corvo shot a look over to Father Martin, who seemed to notice the scrutiny he was under and shifted weight with discomfort. So, he’d gone ahead and talked ever more, spreading the story about him even further. 

What exactly had he said about Corvo?

“Especially now that the Pendletons got away with the heiress, I was expecting you to show up at some point. It’s pointless to argue about it. You could use our help and we could use yours. So, what do you say?”

What _could_ he say? Corvo tilted his head and leaned back. The Admiral was right. He had no idea where Emily was being kept right now and he wouldn’t have time to search the entire city for her. If they knew where she was being kept, Corvo _needed_ to make a deal with them. 

After a moment of consideration, he sighed and nodded. 

The Admiral’s smile was wide and insincere. 

“Wonderful,” he said. “In that case, I propose we work together. It just so happens that we have a strong lead on Lady Emily’s current whereabouts. If you can rescue her, we can help put her back on the throne. _Without_ the influence of the Viceroy.”

That did sound like a good deal all around. It was everything Corvo wanted. 

Which made the tiny hairs at the back of his neck bristle. It was a bit of a _too_ good deal to believe. And if Corvo had learned anything watching Jessamine play around with the nobles it was to never let your guard down. 

If a deal was too good to be true, it usually was just that. 

But, once again, Corvo found himself in a situation, where he didn’t have much of a choice but to do what these people told him to anyway. The public of Dunwall weren’t exactly lining themselves to offer him their help. Most of them would rather see Corvo dead. 

But then again, he didn’t need to bring Emily to them, did he? He could start by getting Emily out of wherever it was they were holding her and make the decision afterwards. 

After a long moment of consideration, he finally grabbed onto the Admiral’s hand and shook it. 

The Admiral grinned wide. 

“You won’t regret it, Lord Protector. Together, we’ll forge a new future for the Empire.”

His handshake was a firm one and he reached to pat Corvo’s shoulder again. 

“This is the worst idea we’ve had so far,” Lord Pendleton muttered. 

“Oh, you haven’t heard the whole plan yet,” Admiral Havelock said. “And I’m sure you’ll find the results to be more than satisfying once we’re done.” He shot a look Corvo’s way. “Assuming, of course, that we’ll succeed in the first part.”

Corvo shifted back, arms crossed and waited for the man to finally share what he knew. 

“As it turns out, the attack on the Golden Cat frightened both the Pendleton brothers and the Viceroy. For two night in a row, Viceroy’s allies have been struck by the same beast and Burrows has drawn his own conclusions about the situation. It’s not yet clear _what_ he thinks has happened, but he’s made a move to pull his allies closer to keep them safe.”

That made sense. Corvo crossed his arms. His failure at the Golden Cat stung painfully. He wouldn’t fail again. He couldn’t afford to. He needed to bury his own fears down somewhere deep, where they couldn’t bother him and finish the job. When all of this was over, he could wallow over the life he’d lost and maybe try to drink his problems away. 

But for now, he needed to see this through. 

“The Pendleton Brothers have been relieved of their guard duty. Not that they were doing that good of a job to begin with. My sources say that Lady Emily currently resides with the Boyle sisters instead. As far as I know, the Boyles don’t know who they’ve been given and apparently Lady Emily has been assigned as Lydia Boyle’s personal servant.”

The Boyles. Corvo grimaced. He was familiar with the family. They were one of the richest and most influential noble families in Dunwall and they’d readily reminded everyone else around them of the fact. Waverly Boyle had been quick to proclaim herself as a personal friend of the Empress’, although Jessamine had in secret confessed to Corvo that she detested the woman. But Jessamine had been forced to pretend to enjoy her company to keep up good relations with her family. 

_Traitors. All of them._

And now Corvo had learned that none of that had been enough to keep the Boyles from turning against Jessamine anyway. He pressed a hand over his chest. He hoped the Boyles at least thought they’d had a good reason for betraying the Empress. Because if it was just gaining more riches as Dunwall crumbled, Corvo didn’t know he’d be able to still his anger. 

The Heart started beating faster. The simmering anger was quiet for now, tinted with sadness, but unmistakably there. 

He hummed quietly. He would keep them on the right track. He would _try._

“So, I take it they’re keeping the little Empress with them in the mansion,” Father Martin said. “That’s not an easy place to break into.”

“No,” Admiral Havelock said, turning to look at Corvo. “Not on foot, at least.” 

He could remember visiting the Boyle Manor with Jessamine before. It was situated in the Towering District, of course. It was one of the closest mansions to the Imperial District, a fact that Waverly Boyle had been endlessly smug over.

It was agreed, then, that Corvo would sneak into the Boyle mansion on his own, through whatever means necessary. It would be easier for him to break in and capture Emily and the so-called Loyalists would have to do nothing at all. Their work would start afterwards, the Admiral boasted, while Lord Pendleton kept drinking from his flask in the background. They would bring Emily to the court, present her to the ministers and advisors and help clear out everything. Corvo wouldn’t have to worry about the mechanics of the politics. His part would be over by then. All he needed to do was see to it that Emily was taken out of the clutches of the Boyles unharmed. 

Corvo was fine with that. He didn’t know how much help he even could be afterwards. It was hard to tell how much time he had left. But this he could do. 

This time, he would not fail. 

He already knew how he was going to deal with it. He would shift before reaching Emily. Show her his face right away. He might not have looked like much these days, with his sunken eyes and hollowed out cheeks, but maybe the six months wouldn’t have taken away all her memories of him. Maybe seeing Corvo like that would make her recognize him. 

If she recognized him, she would surely go with him. Even if he wasn’t fully human anymore. Even if he probably would never be. 

This time, he would not fail. 

He left the house same way he’d come in, through the window. Behind him he could hear Lord Pendleton start complaining again, only to be silenced by a sharp shush from the Admiral. Corvo didn’t care enough about their internal bickering to stay behind to see what they’d say next. 

The flight to the mansion wasn’t a long one. The lights shining from it were enough to light the entire skyline with their splendor. Even from above, it would be difficult to approach the mansion unseen. If memory served, there’d be Walls of Light on ground level, with guards making rounds. The lights would make it difficult to approach the mansion without being seen, even in his beast form. 

Not to mention that the Viceroy’s allies would probably know to expect a beast of his description. 

Corvo would figure something out. He had to. 

The Heart thrummed calmingly in his chest, radiating strength. It would be okay. After tonight, they would no longer have to fear for Emily’s safety. They’d figure something else out. Maybe even leave the island altogether. The Heart didn’t like that, but Corvo knew it might be the safest solution right now. He knew Jessamine wouldn’t want to leave her people to rot in the clutches of the curse of the undeath, but the only thing Corvo worried about right now was Emily. 

His thoughts were rudely interrupted, when an arrow just barely missed his beak. 

Immediately, he dove downwards to avoid any further projectiles only to have another arrow miss his tail feathers. 

He saw the shooter on a rooftop not too far off. 

Daud. 

The Heart started beating faster. 

So, he’d come to keep his word, then. Not a day later, he’d already grown tired of waiting around. Corvo hadn’t sought him out, so now Daud was going to hunt him down. 

That Corvo couldn’t allow. He didn’t have time for this nonsense. He was going to – 

The third arrow found its mark and the burn was something Corvo hadn’t been at all prepared for. The arrow tore into his wing, silver breaking through the feathers like they’d been made out of spiderwebs and caught to it, halfway through. Balance shot and pain searing through him, Corvo was falling like a rock. The ground approached fast and he fell past the Towering District. Light he might’ve been, but a fall from this height was still going to be lethal to him. 

He needed to right his course. With one wing working, he just barely managed to turn his straight down plummet enough to hit against the wall of a taller building in Commons. With claws and beak and one working wing he managed to struggle his way up onto the roof. 

He couldn’t shift. His arms were stuck. With the silver arrow in his wing, he couldn’t turn back. 

Daud landed on the roof with much more grace than Corvo had had. He held the wristbow aimed at Corvo as he approached. 

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing, huh?” Daud snarled. 

Corvo swallowed down his pained whines and tried to grab the arrow with his beak. The silver burned like fire, making the Heart wail in pain in his chest. 

“You in there or not, Bodyguard?” He aimed another arrow at him. “You clearly are. I saw what you did to Rulfio. You wouldn’t have just left him there, if you were all gone. So what the hell is your game, huh?”

What was he talking about? Corvo limped away from him, but the assassin had no plans on letting him escape. It was a warning shot. The arrow landed right next to his drooping wing, just inches away from impaling him again. 

“Why didn’t you come find me, Bodyguard?” Daud snarled. “You some kind of a coward? Did they really put a sniveling little weasel to guard the Empress and think they could get away with it?”

The Heart flared in outrage, burning with anger. 

_How dare he? Rip out his tongue! Teach him to talk like that!_

Corvo crooned softly, trying to cover the Heart with his other wing, but it only hurt more. Daud’s mouth fell open as if he’d meant to say something more, but it’d gotten caught in his windpipe. 

“So that’s it, huh?” he said. “No wonder you let Empress die like that.” He marched up to Corvo and kicked him down. The movement was enough to yank the arrow off his wing, wrangling a pained cry out of his beak. “You don’t care one bit that the bitch is dead, huh?”

How dared he? Corvo glowered at the man. Goading him to fight like this? What did he think he was doing? 

_Kill him! Kill him! Don’t need his dirty blood, just kill him!_

The beast rattled its chains, twisting the Heart’s words into terrible violence. Corvo let out a loud shriek. It caught Daud by surprise, making him stumble and it was all Corvo needed to get his wings under him again. 

All his thoughts were on escaping. This was a fight he wasn’t going to win and even if he was able to take down Daud, it wasn’t a fight he _cared_ to win. The Heart was crying out in his chest, calling for the death of a murderer, but Corvo couldn’t listen to it. It wasn’t thinking clearly. So, against the pain, he flew high and he flew fast, reaching the tallest building he could see before he crashed and gave up his harmed wings. 

_Kill him_ , the Heart said, but its tone had gone from rage to pleading. _Corvo. Corvo. The murderer must pay._

It wasn’t what she would’ve wanted. In her right mind, she would’ve never demanded something like that out of him. She would’ve _known_ it was too much. They weren’t in their right mind. They didn’t really want this. 

But the Heart was insistent. He could feel it stinging with betrayal. 

He just _couldn’t._

“I’m sorry,” he croaked. “I can’t. Not even for you.”

”What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Corvo whirled around to face Daud. He was snarling, his face twisted into shapes that weren’t fully human. 

Of course he couldn’t have just shaken the man off. Of course he’d followed. He couldn’t just leave it be. 

Corvo’s throat was tight. 

”Fight me, coward!” Daud spat out, his teeth longer and sharper than before. ”Stop running away! Why did you even bother to fight it if you’re like this? Did you _want_ her to die?”

The fury in his chest was tinged with sorrow. It ripped him raw, turning his skin into feathers. The animal instinct coupled with the raw grief of the Heart had him pulling the cloak on. 

He wanted to stop thinking. 

Daud was grinning like a madman when he realized that Corvo wasn’t running away. ”Good!” he snarled, his nails growing into claws. He was more wolf than a man now. ”Face me! Rip me to pieces! I know you want to!”

He didn’t. But he did. The grief in his chest made it hard to think. The animal wanted to fight. He wanted to fly. He pushed off the roof, but Daud was faster, slamming his claws to the side of his chest, throwing him down. 

He hit the roof hard. The air was knocked out of his lungs and his wings fell off his back as nothing but the ends of his cloak. He rolled to avoid the next strike, a different kind of instinct taking over. 

Corvo drew his sword and used it to guide the next strike to the side. Daud roared in fury, fur spreading from his hands towards his arms and bulking up underneath his sleeves. He drew out a blade of his own. 

When Corvo had been younger, in a better shape, responsible for the Empress’ well-being, he’d been quite well-known for his abilities with a sword. He’d been celebrated as one of the best. 

Now, though, he was a shadow of his former self. He was strong. Stronger than he was before. But Daud was inhumanly strong as well and Coldridge still clung tight onto Corvo. 

The instinct was the only thing he could rely on. He didn’t have time to think. Daud would move to slice at him with his blade and the only thing keeping Corvo alive was his ability to meet that blade and guide it away from him. 

Over and over again, Daud attempted to reach him, but Corvo stopped him. It was surprisingly easy. 

It was easier than it was supposed to be. 

Striking past Daud’s guard, Corvo moved closer. With a quick thrust, he was able to slice at his arm. The stolen sword cut through the fabric of Daud’s coat. He wasn’t fully a wolf yet and the steel blade was able to draw blood. Daud hissed, but didn’t back down. 

Why was he still fighting in this half-formed state? It was making Daud slower. Corvo could tell. It made his joints stiffer and his skin more vulnerable. If he’d shifted fully into his beast form, Corvo’s sword wouldn’t be able to cut through his fur. 

And yet, Daud met his blade with a handicap. 

What sort of a twisted game was he playing? 

Corvo cut him again, cutting through his pant leg, blood splattering across the roof. It sang to Corvo, promising him great many things. If he killed the wolf and drank his blood, he would be more powerful than any of the others. He would have the beast’s powers all to himself and he could rule the whole of Dunwall, with Emily at his side!

Another cut, this one across Daud’s face, had the man stumbling back. 

For someone who’d hunted Corvo down across Dunwall to force him into a fight, Daud was failing miserably. 

Corvo knew the man could do better. 

And yet he wasn’t even trying. 

There was a certain desperation to the way he moved. None of Daud’s strikes managed to land on him. Corvo knew he was good, but not that good. He was rusty from lack of practice, yet somehow, he met every move Daud made with his own. 

He kicked the man away from him, sending him to his knees. Daud was breathing heavy, his form returning back to fully human. Blood trickled down the side of his face when he looked at the roof revealing his neck to Corvo’s blade. 

Corvo’s lip pulled into a sneer. The Heart begged him to bite in. He was practically being offered it. 

But he couldn’t. 

Not even for her. 

He pulled back and in that moment of confusion, he managed to shift and rise to his wings again. Daud scrambled to his feet, snarling at him, but Corvo struck his wings down before he could reach him, creating a powerful blast of wind. 

It knocked Daud down, throwing him back. It was strong enough to send the assassin sliding off the side of the roof. At the very last second before falling to his demise, Daud managed to grab on, his talons finding a crevice to sink into. For one second, the fight died in his eyes, giving way to something closer to fear. 

So, the man wanted death, but feared it at the same time. Corvo landed back on the roof. 

Another strike of his wings like that, and Daud would be no more. The fall from this height would be enough to end his tale. 

He’d be dead like he wanted, and could bother Corvo no longer. 

It would’ve been easy. The Heart in his chest was stuttering with uncertainty. 

Corvo walked closer and turned his head so he could look down at Daud. The man gritted his teeth and met his stare head on. A cornered animal was the most dangerous one and the look in Daud’s eyes was very much cornered. But as Corvo reached closer, that look turned into something that looked like acceptance. 

Daud wasn’t going to fight him. He wasn’t even trying to pull himself up anymore. 

Spitting out a sharp croak, Corvo shifted back to his human form, grabbed onto the back of his jacket and dragged the man back on the roof. 

The Heart was quiet in his chest, when Corvo took a silver arrow from his pocket. Daud’s eyes snapped open and an enraged growl ripped out of his throat. It got cut short and wrangled into a pained yell, when Corvo shot the arrow to his thigh. Daud looked angry and betrayed, reaching to slash a Corvo, but reached nothing as Corvo jumped back to his wings. 

Daud cried after him when he left, howling like a wounded animal as he grew smaller and smaller in Corvo’s periphery. He didn’t give chase and Corvo didn’t look back.


	5. The Young Empress – Betrayal at the Boyle Mansion

Corvo swore he could hear Daud screaming after him long after his voice should’ve carried. He tried not to focus on it, but with the quiet in his head, it was difficult not to. 

The Heart hadn’t said anything since they’d left him behind. Corvo could still feel it quivering there, but whatever wisdom it was holding onto, it wasn’t willing to share.

That might’ve been for the best. Corvo wouldn’t have known how to deal with it anyway. 

He _needed_ to concentrate. He needed to focus on Emily. If he couldn’t, it would be all over. 

Curse Daud and his selfish need to butt into Corvo’s matters. If he was feeling so bad about killing the Empress, he could’ve dealt with that guilt himself, instead of forcibly dragging Corvo into it. 

Honestly. Hadn’t he done enough already?

Corvo wanted to stop and breathe. He wanted to find a place to land and just sit with his head in his hands for a while. But he didn’t have that kind of time. He’d been forced to waste enough as it was. What he needed to do now was pick up his pace and try to catch up lost time. 

It was going to be fine. He wasn’t going to fail this time. He’d made up his mind. 

He could feel the resentment coming off the Heart. Understanding was mixing with deep sorrow and darkening into seething. Neither of them was in their right minds right now, but Corvo knew they weren’t going to be getting any better. There was only one way this was going to end for them and all they could do now was to make sure that they made the best possible choices up to that point. That way Emily would at least have better chances of survival afterwards. 

The Heart knew it as well. Deep down they both did. But something in them was making it difficult to hold onto those thoughts. It was affecting one of them more than the other, but it wouldn’t take long for the effects to catch up to Corvo as well. 

He didn’t know how much time they had left. 

They needed to make this night count. 

They needed to hurry. 

The Boyle Mansion rose majestic before them. The Heart provided many fleeting memories of emotions of the place. Boyles loved to flaunt their wealth in the faces others. Perched on the highest point of the Towering District, they lit up their grounds shinier than all others so the people in the lowest of low districts could see them against the night sky. 

Corvo watched it from afar. With all their splendor, it didn’t look like the curse of the Lower District had affected the Boyles at all. They could still easily afford the oil for the lights and the guards in their gardens. The city around them was dying and the Boyles just sat in their mansion, watching it all rot around them. 

Worse than that, they were actively taking part in its destruction. Siding with the Viceroy, whether they realized it or not, they were spelling doom for Dunwall. 

Corvo was going to put a stop to that. 

The mansion was familiar to him. He remembered studying its blueprints and deciding on the guard duties during Jessamine’s many visits. Lady Waverly had always considered this to be a severe offense against her name, but Corvo had never much cared for the little games the nobles played. His job was to make sure the Empress was safe, nothing more. 

Real good job he’d done on that one. 

The Viceroy’s warning had clearly reached the Boyles’ ears, since the gardens around the mansion were lit up bright enough to look like it was daylight outside. The Walls of Light in the entryways were crackling bright and deadly. There were guards outside, on the balconies and on the buildings around. Corvo could even see Tallboys walking outside. 

They knew to expect him. Or, at least they knew to expect a monstrous beast of a bird. 

Which was a problem. 

Corvo landed on the rooftop of a building across a divide between two district platforms. Shifting back to his human form, he used the lenses of his mask to spy on the people outside. 

He supposed he could’ve rushed inside. That was always an option. With enough speed, he could’ve flown in and blown through the windows on the top floor of the mansion. Then it would’ve just been a question of finding Emily before the guards would reach him. 

Which would be unlikely. Emily was a smart girl. She would try to hide if she heard commotion like that. 

And the guards would no doubt be prepared with silver bullets. 

Corvo was sure the Boyles could afford them. 

He studied as the watchmen outside the mansion greeted each other in passing. Even the city’s guards were in the Boyles’ pockets. 

Barging in wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t have worked at the Abbey and it had led to the failure at the Golden Cat. He needed to be more careful. 

At this point, he couldn’t afford to lose anymore. 

There were buildings around the land. They’d sprouted as close as they could to the Boyle Mansion to get even a sliver of that glory, much to the dismay of the Boyles. Corvo supposed he could’ve gotten in through one of them. 

He thrummed his fingers against the side of his mask and kept looking. 

Just then, a rail car drove by. 

The Towering District was the second smallest of them all. It was also disjointed. Like small islands, the pieces of the district spread over the Commons, with large plots of nothing between them, only rail cars taking the rich people from block to block. 

The Boyle Mansion had nearly a whole block for itself, save for a handful of smaller buildings they hadn’t been able to get rid of yet. And between the building Corvo was currently sitting on and the block for the mansion, was a deep drop down to the districts below, with rails between them. 

And there, under the Boyle Mansion’s block, was an opening for the garage of the house. It went right under the block and housed the Boyles’ own cars. 

It would also be a way inside. 

Out of sight, nearly hidden from the view of the house, it would probably be Corvo’s best bet. 

Unfortunately, it would also no doubt be heavily guarded. 

But maybe not quite as heavily as the airs above. It depended on whether they were expecting a mindless beast or an actual thinking, feeling, conspiring witch. 

Corvo ran a tongue over his teeth, then switched the lenses back to normal. 

Another rail car was approaching. Corvo took a running leap and glided on top of its roof. Without the passenger even noticing, he used it to bridge the gap between the divide, only shifting back to winged form at the very end of the ride to fly into the opening below. 

The space was narrow. Too narrow for him to properly fly there without fear of hitting the electrified rails. But hugging the walls, there were slim walkways inwards, for people working on the cars themselves. 

Corvo blinked and looked around. He could see only two people up ahead of him. It was hard to tell through his vision, but he was pretty sure neither of them was a guard. They were lounging by some crates, one of them smoking, the other shuffling what looked to be a pack of cards. 

Very careless. Mindless beast it was, then. 

The can of chokedust had them distracted long enough for Covo to take them out and leave them leaning against the wall. 

There were a handful of rail cars there, all fancy and beautiful. All Boyle sisters could’ve left with their own cars and still left a couple of them for their help to do their chores with. Although, it was quite clear which cars were meant for the staff and which for the ladies of the house. 

Pilfering a key from one of the servants, Corvo found the door to the Boyle Mansion basement and climbed the stairs up. 

Alright. He was in and had a pretty good way out of the mansion as well. Now all he needed to do was find Emily and leave. 

The basement was filled with wine barrels, food crates and old furniture. With the late hour, not many servants were on the move anymore, but he could see two women sitting in the kitchen. Sneaking closer, he could see them eating dinner together. 

“I swear,” one woman said. “If I have to go check Lady Waverly’s room for assassins one more time, I’ll lose it. There’s never anyone there!”

The other servant laughed at that. 

“I’m serious!” the first one said. “It’s getting worse by the day! She told me to taste her food for her just two days ago and then refused to eat it, because someone else had eaten from the same plate!”

“At least the wine’s good,” the other servant said and there was a clink as they touched their glasses together. 

“Cheers. I’ll drink for that,” the first one said and took a long sip. “Ugh. If the pay wasn’t good, I swear I would’ve left ages ago. But you can’t get a job this good anywhere else.”

Corvo was about to slip into the shadows to find a way past the two, when the second servant leaned closer to the first, whispering to her: “So what’s your opinion about the new servant girl?”

“The child with Lady Lydia?” 

“Yes, her!”

Corvo stopped and pressed against the wall, listening closely. 

“I don’t know. She’s pretty young to be working for someone so important.”

“You don’t think…?” the other servant started, then reconsidered. “I hear that Lady Esma is quite promiscuous. It wouldn’t happen to be – ?”

“No, no, didn’t you hear? She can’t have children. Poor woman. Lady Waverly, on the other hand…”

“What?” the servant asked, scandalized. “Lady _Waverly?_ ”

“She’s been seen leaving the house at late hours to meet… a _paramour_ ,” she said. “Although, the girl is far too old to be the end result of… something like that. But I wouldn’t put it past them. Very messy, these noble affairs.”

So. Emily would be with Lydia Boyle, then. Corvo snuck through the open door into the servants’ stairwell and climbed up. A bit of an air head, that one, if memory served. Music was her only interest and it was the only thing she would talk about with anyone. She and Jessamine had never been close, so Corvo hadn’t had the chance to get to know her. 

At this hour, Corvo had assumed to find the Lady Boyle in her room, getting ready for bed. But as he reached the ground floor, he could hear piano music carrying over the large, empty halls of the manor. A handful of servants were still tidying up for the evening, but most people had already retired for the day. 

But in a room close by, someone was still playing. 

Well. It would be easier for Corvo. 

Hiding under a large table in the middle of a lavish dining room, Corvo waited for a servant to head for the kitchens to dine with the other two, then moved towards the sound of the music. 

Lydia Boyle was sat behind a grand piano, dressed in what looked to be her night gown, fingers flying over the keys with abandon, like she was a woman possessed. And standing next to her, swinging nervously back and forth on her feet, was Emily, dressed in similar clothing as the servants. 

The music ceased for a moment and Emily hurried to turn the page on the music stand. Lady Lydia’s playing continued, the strikes of the keys growing harsher. 

And then Emily turned her head. Corvo froze just as she looked at him, her eyes growing wide. Hurrying to assure her, he lifted a finger to the beak of his mask, asking her to keep her silence. He was aware just how strange he looked. A stranger in a feathered cloak and a bird-faced mask standing in the shadows, with a sword on his hip. And yet, Emily just looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth and said nothing of it. 

Corvo pulled back. The music continued, but through his vision he could see Emily still looking at his direction. 

It didn’t look like the two of them were going to be moving anywhere any time soon, so Corvo would have time to look around a bit. The last thing he wanted to happen when escaping with Emily was a wandering guard accidentally stumbling on them. He loaded his bow with a sleep dart and moved to the large doors leading to the garden. Picking a poker from a nearby fireplace, he used it to bar the door. That would at least buy them time. The other door was a bit further away. He grabbed another iron and was about to move out, when the music stopped again. 

“Stupid girl!” Lydia Boyle screeched and Corvo could hear her bench falling as she stood up. “I gave you one job! _One!_ Turn the page when I reach the notes! How stupid can you be?”

Corvo stopped and turned back to them. 

“I’m sorry!” Emily said. “But I just saw a man in a bird mask!”

The slap was loud enough to be heard from the other side of the room and both the hearts in Corvo’s chest froze. 

“I’m tired of your stories, girl!” Lydia Boyle screeched. “If Waverly hadn’t demanded – “

And that was all she got out before Corvo was on her. 

He had no recollection of shifting. One moment he’d been standing behind a whale statue, with a crossbow in hand, a blade in the other, the second he had Lydia Boyle under him, his claws holding her down and beak held above her as if to pierce her neck. 

“No, please!” Lady Boyle whimpered. 

The rage burned like fire. How dared she? Begging for them, when she’d raised a hand against their child? The heir to the throne? A child of only _ten!_ They should tear her open and leave her for her sisters to find!

Corvo threw back his head, opened his beak and let out a shriek so loud it shattered the glass of the windows, blowing the shards out and alerting every single guard in the vicinity to the beast within their walls. 

Lady Boyle managed to snake her way out of their hold and hide under the piano, sobbing loudly into her silken nightgown. Corvo clawed at the parquet floor, leaving deep dents into the wood. 

The running steps of the approaching guards were what brought Corvo back to his senses. Two hearts were still beating loudly in his chest when he came to. Looking around, he spotted Emily behind the piano, crouched and staring. Her eyes were wide and rounded, wet from tears, and her hand rested on her reddening cheek. But when she looked at Corvo, there was no fear there. 

Just wonder. 

“It’s you,” she said. “You’re here again.”

The guards were going to get there any minute now, but Corvo couldn’t let this moment slip past them. He shifted, pushing a hand through the cloak and Emily’s eyes got even wider. There was a bit of fear there now. It was understandable. The last time she’d ran into beasts before Corvo had been when the wolves had killed her mother before her very eyes. Corvo remained still, trying to make himself look smaller and kept his hand outstretched. 

Curiosity had always been one of her biggest weaknesses. She was insatiable. If faced with a secret, she _had_ to find out the truth. She was like a moth to a flame, when it came to mysteries and monsters. She inched closer to the hand as Corvo waited, reaching towards it with her own. 

That was when the guards from the second floor finally reached them. 

“Shoot it!” Lady Lydia screamed. “Shoot it down!”

Corvo didn’t wait. His wings flared open, covering Emily as the lead bullets bounced off his wings. He pushed off towards Emily. She had barely enough time to let out a frightened gasp before he’d captured her in his talons and burst through the broken window. Bullets flew past him, nicking into his feathers. Glass shattered and fell around him and he took to the sky. 

But the guards on the outside had silver bullets. And as Corvo attempted to rise above their range, one of them managed to find its target. A bullet hit his wing, tearing right into it and surprising a pained croak out of his throat. 

Corvo had been shot before. It wasn’t a nice experience, but he knew what it felt like. 

This was something completely different, though. The pain that spread through his limb was like fire in his veins. Even the silvery arrows Daud had shot at him hadn’t felt like this. 

The bullet had shattered upon impact. Hundreds of tiny shrapnel had broken into his skin. 

His wing was completely immobilized by it. And now Corvo was falling. Emily’s screaming was the only thing that kept him conscious enough to wrap his wing around her before they hit the ground to cushion her fall. 

And hit the ground they did. Hard. Through the ringing in his ears, Corvo could hear Emily crying. 

”Nice shot, Admiral!”

”Silver bullets, my good sir. The only thing that bites into these godforsaken creatures.”

People were approaching them. Corvo moved to guard Emily under his wing and the second bullet hit his shoulder. It shattered similarly and the blinding pain tore through his body. 

The Heart was hammering like crazy in his chest. 

_Corvo, Corvo, Corvo!_ it chanted, panic seeping into its tone. Corvo wasn’t the only one feeling the pain as the silver spread through his whole form. 

The Boyle sisters arrived in the courtyard, huddled together, speaking loudly amongst themselves. More guards were spreading out, surrounding them fully. 

And standing at the forefront, were Admiral Havelock and Father Martin. 

Corvo roared in rage and Father Martin took a careful step back. Curse them! All of them! May time rot their insides, leaving behind nothing but dry bones! Curse the Outsider for even mentioning their names. And curse Corvo’s own stupidity for ever believing a word any of them had said!

The guards were still aiming their weapons at them, but Corvo couldn’t move! He was hardly even conscious enough to think. The pain wasn’t getting better, it was getting worse. His hissing made the closest guard cock his gun. 

Father Martin hurried to stand between him and Corvo. 

“Are you out of your mind?” he said. “The girl is still with it!”

“Shoot that damned beast!” Lydia Boyle screeched, held back by both her sisters. “Shoot it dead!”

“Hold your fire!” Father Martin demanded. 

Admiral Havelock cared little for any of them. He marched right up to Corvo and kicked his side, sending him sprawling back. 

“Here we are, Lady Emily,” he said quietly. “No need to fear now.”

Corvo attempted to tell him to back off and leave her be, but all that came out of his throat was a warbled cry. Emily was looking at him with wide eyes as she was pulled away. 

”You arrived in the nick of time, Admiral,” the guards marveled. ”Were you hunting it?”

”Indeed,” Havelock said. ”We lost sight of it only for a moment. We’re lucky no one got killed. We couldn’t have the young Empress’ death on our hands.”

”The young Empress?” the guard repeated, then turned to look at Emily. 

Lydia Boyle gasped. 

”No,” she breathed out. ”What are you on about? This is a servant girl, nothing more!”

Waverly Boyle attempted to shut her up, but was unable to stop her in time. Admiral Havelock turned to them, smiling terribly pleased with himself. 

“Lydia Boyle,” he said. “You’re the one the girl was with, am I correct?”

“Don’t say anything,” Lady Waverly cautioned, but her sister would hear none of it. 

“Yes,” she said. “And what of it? She’s a servant girl and I may do whatever I wish with her. My sister gave her to me and – Ouch!”

Waverly ground the sole of her shoe against her foot, but it was too late.

“In that case,” Admiral Havelock said, pointing his pistol at the sisters. “Waverly Boyle, you’re under arrest for conspiracy against the Empire. With the help of the Pendleton twins, you kidnapped and attempted to hide Empress Jessamine Kaldwin’s daughter, Lady Emily Kaldwin, the heir to the throne, for your own gain!” 

Unrest ran over the crowd gathered in the yard. Lydia Boyle covered her face with her hands while Lady Esma looked flabbergasted. Servants awoken by the inhuman screeching were whispering behind their hands and the guards were talking to each other in shock. 

And through it all, Corvo only had eyes for Emily. She was being held under the hand of Admiral Havelock. Staring at Corvo, her face was pale and bloodless, eyes as wide as saucers. Her lips were trembling and she was hardly even following the arguments happening around her, as Waverly Boyle broke down and demanded her guards to arrest Admiral Havelock and Father Martin, while the Admiral said they shouldn’t, unless they didn’t want to get accused of treason. 

It was all devolving into a mess. Corvo realized with a faraway feeling that both the hearts in his chest were growing weaker in their rhythm. The Heart had grown quiet, her whispers nothing but mumbled nonsense. Corvo’s own heart was aching, and coldness was seeping into his form. 

He could feel Father Martin’s eyes on him. Curse the man! Curse him and all he stood for. Corvo had known him to be treacherous, but he hadn’t expected it to end like this. 

Father Martin’s mouth twisted and he looked away. Forcing a light tone to his voice, he knelt down next to Emily and said: “It’s alright, your highness.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention away from Corvo. “You’re safe now. Your trials are over.”

Despite his attempted distractions, Emily’s eyes wandered back to Corvo as the guards helped gather the struggling Lady Waverly. She said nothing. The guards congratulated the Admiral for his good aim. Corvo’s back grew stiff for a moment, as he convulsed. The silver had reached his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. As he tried to pull his hands free to claw at his flesh, he found that he was unable to. He was trapped to this form. 

He was going to die an animal. Helpless. 

Unrecognized. 

No one would mourn his death. 

”What should we do with the beast?”

One of the guards had stepped closer, noticing that he still lived. His pistol was aimed at Corvo and Corvo knew it carried silver. 

Father Martin turned to look at them. For a moment, he looked indecisive. His brows fell into a frown and he shot a quick look at Emily. 

“Well, Bishop?” the guard asked. 

Corvo saw it the moment Father Martin made up his mind. His shoulders hunched and he turned away to get back up on his feet. 

”Put a bullet in him and drop him to the Lower District. Let the weepers take care of the corpse.”

Next to him, the Admiral chuckled. He turned to the guard and waved his hand. 

”Well, you heard the man!” he shouted. ”Put the beast down!”

Corvo struggled to keep his eyes open. He looked at Emily, when the bullet hit him, begging for her forgiveness, when he had no words left to spare.


	6. Left for Dead – A Reprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late upload! Real life stuff has kept me busy the whole week. But here it is! Thank you for your patience.

Corvo hit the ground hard, slamming against the cobblestones with enough force to crack his ribs. 

Feathers danced in his eyes as they fluttered down around him. He groaned and tried to curl to his side, but the pain was too much. Far above him, he could see the guards looking at him over the railings before disappearing. 

They took the lights with them, leaving Corvo into the darkness. The Lower District was once more plunged into cold, empty darkness. 

Ah. The circular nature of time. He closed his eyes, lying in his own pool of blood. 

Now all that was missing was the Outsider. 

He wasn’t even all that surprised to hear the soft clatter of wooden soles on stone approaching him. He opened his eyes, but saw nothing but darkness. 

Corvo didn’t need to see anything to feel the presence next to him, though. 

“And so, we find each other again,” the Outsider said, not an ounce of sympathy in his voice for Corvo. Life was slowly draining out of him and the Outsider couldn’t even be bothered to pretend like he cared. 

Hell. He probably didn’t. How many of his beasts had he seen suffer a similar fate? The stories of his cursed never had good endings. 

“Is this where you imagined your path would lead you?” he asked. “Back to where you started? Is this what you imagined, when you thought about rescuing the daughter of the Empress? After all that you tried to accomplish, in the end, your efforts were wasted.”

He didn’t even have the decency to sound mocking. All the Outsider sounded like was empty. Not even bored. Just empty. 

“Even after being given wings, all you did was fall. Do you feel like you’ve accomplished what you set out to do, dear Corvo?”

In the silence that followed, Corvo had nothing at all to say to him. In his mangled form, he wouldn’t have been able to say anything even if he would’ve wanted to. He’d never been a man of many words and these days, he found himself speaking less and less. 

But for the Outsider, he had absolutely nothing. 

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. The silver burned in his lungs, making him shudder as he swallowed down coughs. 

The Outsider’s steps came to a stop next to him. For a moment he just stood there and Corvo could feel the heavy mists gathering around them. 

As his more beastly form slowly melted from his body, he could feel the pain numbing down a little. His hands came free from his chest as the Outsider watched him. Corvo didn’t have strength to lift them. He’d heard stories of the Outsider’s cursed attempting to fight the Ancient Evil in their final moments, but those fights never ended well for the cursed. So, he didn’t even bother to try. It wouldn’t have done him any good. 

He let his hands fall to the ground. 

“Did you not learn a single lesson, Corvo?” the Outsider continued. “Was this all really that pointless to you? After all, you fell for the same tricks again. You were a pawn to their games and you played your role happily. You might as well have died the first time you fell. You might as well have given up in Coldridge and let your own body kill you.”

The Outsider’s voice was coming from somewhere far away. The coldness of the Lower District didn’t feel as bad anymore. His wounds had stopped aching as well. Corvo could taste the metallic tint of blood in his mouth and the Heart had been alarmingly silent for a while now. 

If she had left already, Corvo was sure to follow soon after. 

The air shifted next to him when the Outsider knelt down. Corvo opened his eyes enough to see a pale hand hovering over his face as if to see if he still breathed. 

“You trusted the wrong people,” he said. “Had you remained vigilant, none of this would’ve happened. And now you’re going to pay the price.”

He was talking. Corvo knew he was. He could just barely see his lips moving, hear the murmuring words. But they weren’t connecting in his head. The world was growing quieter around him and the only thing he could hear clearly anymore was the sea. The crashing waves were growing heavier and somewhere out there, he swore he could hear whales singing. 

“Corvo.”

At least Emily wasn’t in the hands of the Pendletons or Boyles anymore. That had been his plan all along. He hadn’t had the time or the mind to think about what would happen afterwards. And, he supposed it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. All he could hope for now was that whatever the Admiral had planned for her would be better than… better than what the Viceroy had…

“Get up.”

They wouldn’t hurt her. They couldn’t. She was the figurehead of the Empire. They needed her alive.

“Get up, Corvo.”

The echoes of the ocean were calling his name. Next to him, the Outsider stood back up. 

“A pity,” he said and the one word sounded so tired, like centuries of time coalesced into a single sound. 

And then, his shoes squeaked against the cobblestones as the turned on his heels. 

He made a sound at the back of his throat, then said a single: “Interesting,” before disappearing. 

Corvo wasn’t conscious enough to hear or see what had been so interesting to him. Behind his mask, tears rolled down his dirty cheeks and his breathing grew shallow. He didn’t hear the shuffling noises of something dragging closer. He didn’t feel the warm breath washing over the naked skin of his hands. 

He didn’t see the Hunter kneel down next to the wolf to study him. 

“He’s still alive,” the Hunter said. 

The wolf huffed, his mouth unfit to form words. 

“Barely,” the Hunter continued. “Get a message to him. Call off the teams and meet us at the base.”

By the time Corvo was hoisted off the ground, he was no longer awake.

*

He hadn’t expected to wake up again.

At least, he hadn’t expected to wake up _alive_. Corvo didn’t know if the Outsider’s cursed could become weepers, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to be cursed to exist the rest of his days trapped into a decaying corpse that was once human, waiting for the mercy of a blade through his heart.

But the pain he was in, when he forced his eyes open, wasn’t something a dead person would’ve deserved, he was sure. Not that he’d expected to get into the Heaven the church preached about. But the Void was known for being a place of nothing. 

There’d be no pain in the Void, surely. 

And Corvo was in great pain. 

He stared up as the world grew sharper around its edges. Slowly the cracked, off-white ceiling came into focus above him. He blinked blearily and took in the dampened wallpapers and the damaged furniture. Corvo was on the only bed of the room. Next to it was a tiny nightstand with a burning oil lamp on it, across the room there was a wardrobe that looked to be one push away from collapsing and a rickety wooden chair, with his feathery cloak folded on top of it. 

And Corvo himself, was lying under three heavy blankets, shivering cold. 

He’d been sleeping in strange beds since getting out of Coldridge. He’d slept where he found a roof over his head and a dry enough mattress. It wasn’t really a surprise to wake up in a room that wasn’t familiar. 

It was the waking up part that was the strangest thing. 

That, and Corvo had no recollection on how he’d gotten here in the first place. 

He had no strength left in his body. The blankets over him felt heavy enough to suffocate him and when Corvo tried to lift his right arm, he found himself incapable of moving the weight. 

And despite the heavy layers on top of him, he still felt cold. 

For a while, he just stayed there, unable and un _willing_ to move. He was tired. But it was more than that. His body wasn’t moving right. When he curled his fingers, it felt like the action came seconds after he’d decided on it. There was a burning in his veins. It was dull at the moment, but it was there all the same. A constant background hum of pain. 

He felt like he could close his eyes and not open them again. But at the same time, sleep was out of his reach. 

The Heart was quiet in his chest, when he tried to reach for it. There were no whispers. No words he could recognize. Corvo could just barely feel it beating there, next to his, but the Heart was a cold, heavy lump behind his ribs. 

It was clear that something was wrong with his body. Beyond the things that were more obvious. Someone had patched the wound on his shoulder, but the pain wasn’t going away. His thoughts moved sluggishly, keeping him from trying to get up and assess the situation fully. 

He’d been shot. He remembered that. Multiple times, with silver bullets. And then he’d been dropped off. He’d hit the ground in the Lower District and… and the Outsider had talked to him. 

He should’ve been worse off, he realized. His bones should’ve been pulverized and his insides jellied. 

He should’ve been dead. 

But _someone_ had decided that it’d be better if he was brought here instead. 

Someone cruel. Someone heartless, he was sure. 

It would’ve been far kinder to let him perish there. 

Because despite the fact that Corvo had woken up, he had no doubts about the outcome. 

He wouldn’t be surviving the night. 

Whoever it was that had decided to peel him off the ground would soon find themself with a very impractical corpse. 

He closed his eyes and tried to sink back in. He felt like sleep was close enough to reach. That if he fell asleep now, he wouldn’t have to worry about waking up again. But the sweet release wouldn’t come. Dry as his eyes were, he couldn’t keep them shut for long. The pain in his veins was too distracting. 

He wasn’t sure how much time passed since he woke up and the boy arrived, but it must’ve been a while at least. Corvo heard the door open and lifted his head enough to see a boy with sandy hair and sallow skin. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, still gangly and disproportionate like he’d shot up in height suddenly. The boy stopped when he noticed Corvo watching him and his eyes grew wider. Before Corvo could do anything, he’d pulled back out, door slamming shut and he was yelling something as he went. All of it sounded fuzzy to Corvo. The words failed to connect in his head. 

He breathed out and closed his eyes. 

It didn’t take long for the door to slam back open. Corvo could hear it hit the wall. It shook him enough to have his thoughts grow sharper, if only for a moment. He opened his eyes and saw the man he’d hoped he’d never have to see again. 

But, of course Daud would care very little about the things Corvo wanted. 

He gritted his teeth, but couldn’t stop the hiss from escaping his throat. 

What was this? What kind of a game was Daud trying to play here? Was he here to kill him? No, probably not. If he were, Corvo would’ve probably been dead already. Then what? Had _he_ had Corvo brought here? Couldn’t he just have left Corvo to die in the streets?

There was absolutely nothing Corvo could or _would_ offer to the man. 

Corvo’s anger must’ve shown, because Daud’s frown grew deeper. For a moment he’d forgotten he was no longer wearing a mask. When he approached the bedside, Corvo could see the indecisiveness in his features. 

Corvo was wounded, he was weak and he couldn’t fight back. They’d taken his cloak from him and left it out of his reach, so he couldn’t shift either. He was trapped here, stuck in a form that was frail. 

He tried to sit up, teeth bared and a weak snarl rumbling out of him, but he could hardly even push off the bed. 

Daud huffed, unimpressed. 

”There’s no point in acting tough now,” he said. ”I know you won’t kill me.” His eyes narrowed and he looked to the cloak. “You haven’t killed anyone since being cursed.”

There was a window right next to Corvo’s bedside. It was boarded shut, but Corvo knew he would’ve been able to break through it in his other form. He tried to push off again, only to have Daud press him back down by his shoulder. A wild snarl escaped his throat and Daud pulled back like he feared he was going to get bitten. 

Even the small movement had made his head spin. Corvo felt like he was going to be sick. 

“God fucking damn it,” Daud muttered. “How fare gone are you?”

He was utterly defenseless here. And there was nothing he could do about it. The boy from earlier, he must’ve worked for Daud. Which meant that there’d be other Hunters here too. He was captured in the heart of enemy territory and he couldn’t even get out of bed!

It was unfair. It was _embarrassing_. He’d given his vows to always keep Jessamine safe, to give his life for her, in everything he had. He’d offered himself to the Empire and been trusted with the life of the most important person there. 

And now he was bedridden, surrounded by the people who’d killed her. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn’t kill the sting from them. His breathing was ragged and he was unable to keep the shaking from it. 

He heard the legs of the chair drag against the floor. Daud tossed the cloak at the end of Corvo’s bed and sat down in front of it. Corvo would’ve rather he sat _anywhere_ but there. 

“Stop looking like that,” Daud muttered. “Making me look like the bad guy here for saving you. Didn’t drag you all this way to kill you. Calm down.”

Corvo glared at him weakly, fully aware that he had tears in his eyes. Daud was very pointedly looking away from him, hunched down where he sat. 

For a while neither of them said anything. Daud was keenly staring a hole into the floor, while Corvo’s anger and shame died down by degrees. He would’ve been angrier. But he found the feeling overtaken by something empty and cold in his chest. Fight drained from him, leaving behind numbness. He sank down deeper into the bed, breathing out a long sigh. 

Daud seemed to take that as his cue to speak up. 

“Found you dying in the Lower District,” he muttered, not removing his glare from the floor. “Silver in your blood. Fucking Sokolov and his bullets. Shatter into dust. Gets into the bloodstream. Kills a man in hours. Got most of it out. But the damage was done.”

There was a heavy pause. Daud clearly wasn’t done yet. He was struggling to get the words out and Corvo watched him from the corner of his eye. 

“It’s… going to kill you like that.”

Ah. Corvo closed his eyes and sighed. Of course.

The thought… didn’t really worry him. He’d already guessed it. He knew it was close. 

Daud shifted and the chair creaked. Corvo didn’t have the strength to open his eyes. 

He didn’t really know if he wanted to open his eyes at all anymore. 

Maybe it could be easy to just… slip away. It was quiet in his head right now. No other voices whispering, no overbearing hunger consuming him. Emily was… no longer in the Viceroy’s grip, which had been his goal to begin with. All Corvo could do now was to hope that Admiral Havelock, Father Martin and Lord Pendleton treated her better than the Viceroy would’ve. 

Although, he wasn’t sure if he could really rely on that. 

Not that there was anything he could do about it anymore. 

It was a different kind of freedom. Death. Not an open sky he could disappear to, but an endless Void. 

He wondered whether he’d be entering it in his human or beast form. 

He wondered if the Outsider would be there to greet him. 

The Ancient Evil would most likely be disappointed to see how his little experiment had come to such a boring end. 

He felt like maybe he was close to slipping off. To dream or to the Void itself, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t get to do that, though, when Daud’s chair creaked again, louder this time. 

“Bodyguard?” he asked. 

Grumbling under his breath, Corvo forced his bloodshot eyes back open. The assassin was quick to hide his look of relief when he looked away. 

“A god damn pain in my ass,” he muttered and reached for a knife on his belt. 

Corvo’s worries were short-lived, when instead of his heart, the blade found its way to Daud’s arm, cutting a long slash across it. He grimaced and let a hiss through his teeth before wiping the knife clean on a rag. The cut wasn’t long or deep, but it dripped with dark blood. 

“You’re going to need to feed,” he said, as if that was going to make it any better. 

Corvo made no move towards him. 

“Take it,” Daud said. ”You’ll feel better.”

Corvo’s eyes grew narrow and he shot the man a wary look. Daud’s face twitched and he curled his lip to reveal sharp canines. 

” _Take it_ ,” he said. ”I’m _offering it_ to you.”

Very slowly, very deliberately Corvo bared his teeth at the man, then turned away. 

He had no interest in taking blood from a man like Daud. 

A hand shot to grab onto his shoulder, forcing him upright. 

“I’m _trying_ to _help_ you,” Daud growled. “Don’t you get that? You’ll be dead in a _day_ , if you don’t drink. There’s fucking _silver_ in your blood. It’s _going to_ kill you if you don’t do anything about it. So drink the god damn blood!”

Corvo tried to pry Daud’s steely grip off his shoulder. He really did. Only then did he realize just how icy cold his own fingers were. 

His attempts seemed to only infuriate Daud more. 

”Do you _want_ to die?” he demanded. He was about to say more, when he stopped, his mouth left half open. Corvo wasn’t looking at him. He was hanging limp from his hold, like one of Emily’s dolls when she played with them. His head was lolling back and he didn’t have the strength to pull it upright. 

He would’ve much rather wasted away on the streets than die here. His remains would’ve been a meal to some poor weeper. There he would’ve been forgotten and unrecognized. Even so, it would’ve been a much better fate than this. 

But trapped he was. With the people responsible for Jessamine’s death. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing a few times. 

Life was so unfair. 

” _Shit_ ,” Daud said before shoving Corvo back down on the bed. He got up in a hurry, the chair falling down behind him as he stormed off. 

Corvo watched him go. 

Better to die alone than in company like that, he supposed bitterly. 

Better that than to accept a gift from Jessamine’s killer. 

The Heart in his chest remained quiet. It couldn’t even muster a bit of anger for the fact that they would die in the mercy of Daud and his people. 

He closed his eyes, fully planning on never opening them again.

*

But, of course, Daud’s Hunters wouldn’t give him that courtesy.

He wasn’t sure how long for he was left alone with his thoughts exactly, but some time after Daud had left, there was a knock on the door. 

The hunter entering was dressed in a blue coat, with his mask hanging from his neck. It took Corvo a moment to realize that he knew the man. Well, he didn’t _know_ him, but he’d seen him before. 

It was the man he’d released from the church’s hold. The one the interrogator had been questioning. 

The wolf Father Martin had shot. 

So. He’d survived as well. 

Good for him, he supposed. 

Corvo didn’t have much sympathy for him. 

The Hunter closed the door carefully after himself, making no noise as he did so. His steps were quiet on the floorboards, measured and smooth. Next to Corvo’s bed, he lifted a fist to his heart in a greeting. 

“Lord Protector,” he said. 

Corvo clicked his tongue and looked away. He’d stopped being the Lord Protector the moment Jessamine had died and hearing one of Daud’s wolves of all people call him that had him bristling. 

“Good to see that you’re still awake,” he said, seemingly unaffected by Corvo’s mood. “With the way Master Daud was acting, I thought you might’ve given up the ghost already.”

Corvo turned to look at him. The man wasn’t smiling exactly, but Corvo could hear the soft mockery in his voice. 

“I’d like to formally introduce myself, Lord Protector,” he said. “My name is Thomas. I’m Master Daud’s current second in command. And I believe I owe you my life.”

Corvo kept his mouth shut. The man owed him nothing. Corvo hadn’t known who it was he’d been rescuing. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if his panicked scrambling at the Abbey could be called a rescue at all. 

He had ended up helping an assassin without even realizing. 

He looked to the side. Then again, he thought, he might’ve helped even if he’d known. 

Yes, Daud and his people were the ones who’d done the deed. But the people who’d ordered the hit were Viceroy Burrows and Father Campbell. The assassins might’ve been the blade that struck her, but he hands wielding it had belonged to someone else. And Corvo hadn’t killed the Bishop for his involvement. 

He _wasn’t_ a killer. He’d made that choice already. The people who’d taken part in the attack would all live to suffer the consequences of their actions. 

Leaving someone to die was barely any different from killing them yourself. 

Thomas was watching him carefully. For a long moment he said nothing at all and Corvo wasn’t going to be cutting the silence either. Corvo could see that most of the assassin’s wounds had healed already. It was a part of being a creature like them, he supposed. Although, he was still missing two fingers. 

He would live. Because of Corvo. The life of an assassin might not be a long one, but he’d have a few days more at least because of Corvo’s interference. 

How’s that for irony. 

Thomas shifted a little before speaking up again, hands going behind his back. “I feel I must apologize for the little… _misunderstanding_ we had afterwards,” he said. “I didn’t mean to attack you. I only followed you to thank you for what you’d done and help you in return. But I fear my appearances might’ve given you the wrong impression. I’m sorry to have caught you by surprise. I really am thankful for what you did.”

He talked a lot. It was a wasted effort on Corvo. 

Thomas must’ve seen he was losing Corvo fast. Corvo watched him change tactics on the fly. 

“I came to inform you that Master Daud has put me in charge of tracking down Lady Emily Kaldwin.”

That certainly got Corvo’s attention. His heartbeat spiked painfully, making him nearly choke on his own breath. Thomas hurried to his side as he hacked and coughed weakly, patting him on the back with enough strength to bruise. 

“Only to locate her,” he assured him. “Master Daud has ordered us to intervene and retrieve her safely. With your help, of course, when you’re feeling better.”

What. Corvo glared at him. What was he talking about? His trembling hands curled around the sheets. If this man though Corvo was going to help them capture Emily again, he was dead wrong. Gritting his teeth together, he glowered him. He would die before doing that. And that was a promise. 

Thomas tilted his head, studying Corvo. Corvo glared right back, although the effect of the gesture was lessened by his fading steam. 

“I know what you must think of us,” he said slowly. “What’s done has been done and no one is asking for your forgiveness. Not directly, at least. I know my word might not mean much to you, but I’ll tell you this: Master Daud is trying to help you. He can’t not try. It’s tearing him up inside, whether he wants to admit it or not. He’s tried everything else and he’s at the end of his rope. You don’t have to forgive him. All I ask you to do is to consider using him.”

He took out a vial from his belt. One of those used to sell Sokolov’s elixirs in. Much like with the vials Joplin had given to him, though, the substance inside wasn’t pure elixir. Thomas placed the vial on the nightstand next to Corvo. 

“Our current knowledge is that Admiral Havelock and his compatriots took Emily Kaldwin to Dunwall Tower last night. They’re in talks with Viceroy Burrows, hoping to get rewarded, although it’s doubtful that was their only reason. Most likely they’re planning on blackmailing the man. None of the three Loyalists have been seen since entering the Tower, although it is unlikely that they’re dead yet.”

Corvo looked from Thomas to the vial, then back to the man. His hold around the sheets grew slack. Thomas was watching him carefully. 

“The Tower, as you are well aware, is highly guarded, and they’ve only increased the amount of watchmen personnel on the premises since Father Campbell was attacked. Although, hearing of the demise of the winged beast seems to have lessened the Viceroy’s worries. It will present a greater challenge compared to… our last visit,” Thomas said, and cleared his throat. “But our Hunters will get through them this time as well.” He nodded at the vial. “Drink, when you’re feeling better. We need you at your best strength if we wish to rescue Emily Kaldwin safely.”

The man played dirty. But Corvo couldn’t muster the effort to feel bitter about it. Using Emily against him like that. He stared at Thomas, but the man had said all he’d come there to say. He placed his fist over his heart again, before turning around and leaving the room. 

When he closed the door behind him, Corvo was left all alone in the room. 

He was just tired. 

So damn tired. 

For a while he just stayed there, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t think about much. His thoughts were moving sluggishly, like his head was filled with tar. 

The clearest thought he could manage was of Emily. 

He doubted the Loyalists cared one bit about her. To them, she was just another tool to be used, just like Corvo had been. She was a future empress to them, nothing more and nothing less. They wouldn’t harm her physically, of that Corvo was sure. 

But what sort of a life could they offer her? 

Corvo was fine being a pawn to people who had good intentions. But Emily wasn’t meant for a life like that. She was a smart girl. She would see what they were doing. She wouldn’t like the role they offered her and she would rebel. 

And they would seek to iron out all of her flaws to make her into the person they wanted her to be. 

That was not a life suited for her. She deserved better. 

But what were Corvo’s options? What could he do?

Thomas had basically given him two choices. Either he would die tonight, or take the Hunters’ offer. 

Corvo wasn’t sure if those were options at all. 

Whether the Loyalists or the Viceroy would end up in control of Emily didn’t matter. They only saw her as a means to control Gristol. None of them would care what happened to her, as long as they could use her to their ends. All they cared was that she was _theirs_ to control. 

Thomas was right to call him the Lord Protector. His duty was still unfulfilled. He might’ve sworn himself to protect the Empress and failed, but their daughter still lived. 

It wasn’t an option at all. Corvo wasn’t allowed to rest yet. 

He turned his eyes on the vial. Blood mixed with elixir. 

Daud’s. No doubt about it. 

He grimaced. The idea tasted bitter in his mouth. 

But Corvo was still a pawn. He still had a job to do. He still had a _responsibility._

He wouldn’t let the Loyalists control Emily. He wouldn’t let the Viceroy keep holding onto her. And he absolutely would not let the Hunters get their hands on her again. 

It was his duty. 

He bit his teeth together and reached for the vial. 

The blood tasted like the sweetest relief and the bitterest surrender. It was like pouring warmth directly into his veins. He swallowed it quick so the taste wouldn’t linger, but the liquid was thick and it stuck to his throat as he drank. The vial rolled out of his limp hold and fell to the floor with a clatter. Corvo fell back on the bed and closed his eyes. 

Only for a moment. 

So that he could rest them a little before he thought about this more.

*

When he next opened his eyes, the light in the room was different. Whereas before the room had been dimly lit by a single oil lamp, now the lamp had been extinguished and a stripe of light was shining through the cracks between the boards on the window. It painted a straight, yellow line on the moldy wallpapers and lit up tiny dust particles as they danced in the air.

Corvo felt like he was lying down at the bottom of the sea. Slowly he returned to the conscious world, unsure and uncertain. He felt a lot better than he had before falling asleep. The burn was gone and when he lifted his hand, he felt like he could control his movements more easily. 

He wasn’t fully healed, though. There was still a consistent ache in his body. The shoulder that had been shot still felt sore. It was clear that he was nowhere near his full strength, but it was leaps and bounds better than before. 

Pushing his covers aside, Corvo sat up slowly. He reached for his shoulder and touched the wound. It was tender like a cut that’d had time to heal for weeks already. Pulling apart the bindings, he found a fresh, new scar and some bruising around it. Even those were fading fast. 

His hand moved to his chest. 

_Corvo…_

The whisper was weak. Nothing more than a quiet whimper. Corvo bowed his head and squeezed his stinging eyes shut. A shuddering breath escaped his mouth as he curled into himself. 

Thank god. The Outsider. Whoever it was that had looked after them that night. His shoulders shook. He held himself for a while and waited for the tremors to subside. 

Someone had been to the room while he’d been out of it. They’d left a can of jellied eels on his nightstand, with a piece of dry bread and another vial. Corvo wolfed down the tiny meal and drank the blood. 

And then he just sat there. The Heart was quiet, its beating barely there. 

Now what?

Corvo rested his hand on his chest. 

What were the they going to do now? They might actually survive this. So, what should they do?

Corvo had never been good at making the decisions. He left that stuff for the people above him. He was told what to do and he did what was required to the best of his ability. 

Now there was no one to tell him what to do. He needed to make the decisions for himself. He’d been given a few options. 

How he chose to act on them was up to him. 

Emily’s safety went beyond everything else. That he had decided already. Everything else came secondary to that. 

The Heart thrummed softly in agreement. Corvo rubbed his chest, breathing a little easier. 

Yes. Good. They agreed. 

The idea of trusting the Hunters, though. That didn’t sit well with either of them. The Heart might not have been very vocal, but Corvo could feel the lingering sense of resentment there. However, the stronger emotion drowning that out was a feeling of surrender. Their situation wasn’t good. They didn’t have what it took to take on the entirety of Dunwall Tower on their own. 

And even _if_ they managed to do it, then what?

They needed help. 

But the last time they’d trusted someone had been when they’d gone to Father Martin and gotten shot for it. 

Trusting people got them hurt. 

Trusting people was what nearly got them killed. Over and over again. 

Corvo closed his eyes and breathed out a long sigh. He buried his head into his hands. 

The building around him was quiet. He hadn’t heard anyone moving around outside the room he was in since he’d woken up. Taking a look with his vision now, he could just barely see a handful of Hunters making their rounds outside. There were two sitting in a room below him, clearly in the middle of a conversation. 

And then there was the person outside his room. Sitting on an armchair. 

So, he was being guarded. 

He ran a hand through his dirty hair and held his breath for a moment. Then he looked around the room. 

His cloak was still sitting folded at the end of his bed, where Daud had left it after his visit. The rest of his stuff was on the floor, near the door. He could see his crossbow, the stolen sword and his assortment of arrows, chokedust and elixirs. 

And next to them was what looked like a fresh set of Hunter’s clothes, with his mask on top of them. 

The first thing Corvo reached for was the cloak. Its weight was familiar and warm on his shoulders. He immediately felt a little better with it on. 

If they wanted to, they could leave. He could shift now and tear the boards off the window. He’d have them broken before the person sitting outside would have time to stop him and once he’d be airborne, all he’d have to do was dodge their arrows and he’d be safe. 

They’d probably just hunt him down, though. They’d done it before. 

And they’d know for sure where he was headed anyway. 

He sighed, puffing his cheeks and moved to pull on the pants he’d been given. 

The other option was to take Thomas for his word. To believe that Daud actually wanted to help. 

It was a hard thing to swallow. 

He knew nothing about Daud as a person. He’d heard stories. The man was ruthless. If he got paid to kill you, all you could do was pray for forgiveness in the afterlife and accept the inevitable. Daud had killed Jessamine, taken Emily and then chased Corvo down in an attempt to finish him off as well. 

He’d also been fully prepared to let Corvo kill _him_. He’d _wanted_ it. 

Corvo stopped, licked his lips, then unclasped the cloak just enough to pull on a shirt and the coat. 

He didn’t know what to think of Daud. Or his Hunters. His kneejerk reaction was clear and well justified. 

Why would they even _want_ to offer their help?

What did they want? They’d taken enough as it was. 

They’d broken things that could not be fixed. 

Corvo pulled the cloak back on his shoulders and ran his fingers through the feathers. Then, he looked at the person sitting outside the room. 

There wasn’t really a choice in this. There was only one right option and even though he didn’t have to like it, he had to accept it. Corvo pressed a hand against the Heart again, to ask for her opinion. 

It was quiet for a moment. The Heart was cold.

Corvo closed his eyes and sat still. 

The Heart stuttered weakly. 

_Why?_

Corvo pressed his hand harder. 

_Am I meant to forgive the man for what he did? He chose his path…_

The sorrow leaking through was a trickle compared to the fast-flowing stream it had been before. 

Corvo listened to it. He understood. And he knew he couldn’t forgive either. So, in the assassin’s stead, he asked for forgiveness from the Heart for what he was about to do. 

It was quiet after that. 

He strapped the sword to his side, the crossbow to his back and pocketed the many arrows. In his hand, he kept one of the sleep darts, hidden in his sleeve, behind the weight of the cloak. Only then did he open the door. 

Daud sat in front of a fireplace in one of two worn down armchairs. He sat with his back to Corvo, staring at the flames. He must’ve heard the door open, yet he hadn’t reacted. He wasn’t asleep either, Corvo could tell. Instead, he just sat there, arms on the armrests, tired eyes on the fire.

It would’ve been so easy to sneak up to him now and slit open his throat. Corvo’s mouth watered at the idea. 

It was a lie, though, wasn’t it? You didn’t just sneak up on a seasoned assassin. 

Not unless he let you. 

Corvo stood in the doorway and waited for a reaction. 

He got none. 

So Corvo turned his attention on the window on the other side of the chairs instead. 

It’d been left wide open. Like an invitation. If Corvo had wanted to, he could’ve shifted then and there and left through it before Daud had time to reach for a weapon. 

Again. It must’ve been deliberate. 

He drew in a long breath, filling his lungs with air. Then, dragging his feet, he walked to the other free chair and sat down. 

At least it was warm by the fire. He closed his eyes, waiting for the assassin to make the next move. 

For a while, he didn’t. They were both quiet and Corvo was in no hurry to break the silence himself. When Daud moved, the leather of the armchair creaked under him. Corvo shot him a look from the corner of his eye, his mask on his lap. 

Daud pressed a hand against his mouth, pulling at his skin. He had dark shadows under his eyes and the daylight streaming through the open window made his skin look deadly pale. He might not be that much older than him, Corvo realized. Although, both of them must’ve been looking ravaged by their experiences. When Daud noticed Corvo looking, he shifted to turn away. Then, he seemed to catch himself and sank down deeper into the chair. 

“You know,” he said at length, his voice weary. “I was a lot younger than you, when I got cursed by the Outsider.”

Corvo did nothing to acknowledge he’d heard the man. But he was listening. 

“Thought it made me special. I thought it made me above everyone else. Learned that wasn’t the case the hard way.”

Daud shot a look his way, as if to make sure Corvo was still listening. Corvo watched him through narrowed eyes. Daud turned away from them. He cleared his throat a few times. 

“I… used to think it wasn’t my fault,” he continued, straightening his back a little. He stared morosely at the fire. “It was the curse that made me who I was. All the violence and the death and the thirst for blood. It was all because of the god damn curse. Not me.”

Corvo got the feeling that Daud wasn’t really trying to have a conversation _with_ him. He was talking _at_ him. Corvo couldn’t really say he appreciated it, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t used to it either. He studied the man carefully, watching as his fingers curled and uncurled. 

“I’ve never met his cursed that doesn’t go sour. The witches, the cultists, Delilah, Granny Rags, they all just…” He made a halted move with his hand, before reaching it to rub at the stubble on his chin. Under his breath, he said: “I used to think it was the curse.”

Corvo turned his eyes from Daud and looked at the fire. Between his fingers, he rolled the dart. 

That was what the church said. That the followers of the Outsider, his witches and beasts, were nothing but bloodthirsty creatures of chaos. They had the Void in them and the Void hungered for life. 

It turned people into monsters. 

Corvo wasn’t sure, though, how much of him was a beast and how much was the damage Coldridge and Daud had left on him. 

“Then in comes you.”

He lifted his eyes. Daud’s voice had a sense of finality to it. He’d woven his fingers together and was leaning his head on his hands, staring at the fire. He looked _tired_. About to collapse on his damn feet. “Fucking disgraced bodyguard. With all the reasons to drive a knife through my guts.”

So that was what this was about. Corvo’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tasted bitter. 

He thought he owed something to Corvo. 

Daud sighed. 

”I know nothing I could do is going to fix this,” he muttered. ”But let me try.”

And there it was. 

Daud felt _guilty_. Corvo could feel it across the divide between their chairs. Daud was fidgeting, waiting for a response. Corvo could see him looking his way, then away again. 

The nerve of the man. How dared he? Was he being serious?

He sounded like he was. Daud was subdued while he waited for Corvo’s certain refusal, resting against the armchair like it was the only thing holding him upright anymore. He had a hollow look in his eyes, very similar to the one he’d had, when he’d expected Corvo to kill him. 

Corvo looked at the flames. 

He couldn’t help but to compare him to the man who’d climbed his way to the Tower over half a year ago. He’d been unstoppable. More a beast than a man. He’d torn into Jessamine’s neck like it was nothing. 

Corvo could still see it, if he closed his eyes. A ruthless, confident beast in a man’s skin. 

The Heart quivered in his chest. Corvo placed his hand over it. 

Daud was looking at him. He could feel it. 

This was not the man he could remember. But that changed very little. Daud might regret his actions and he might want to make things better, but he was right. He couldn’t fix what he’d broken. What he’d taken couldn’t be given back. 

And Corvo couldn’t forgive him. 

But then again, Daud wasn’t asking for that. 

He hated to admit it, but Thomas’ suggestion had gotten stuck under his skin. 

Daud had offered his aid. And Corvo should consider using him. 

Corvo drew in a long breath, then held it for a while. Next to him, he was pretty sure Daud wasn’t breathing either. Slowly, Corvo let out the breath in a long, steady sigh. He frowned a little. 

Maybe it was going to get him hurt again. He’d thought that even though he couldn’t trust Father Martin, he could at least move around the man. He was going to have to be careful. 

But in the end, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. In his current state, refusing the help would’ve been beyond stupid. 

And Corvo couldn’t go gambling on something this important. 

“Fine,” he said, making Daud flinch on his seat.


	7. Last Effort – Storming the Tower

Corvo was still resting, when the Outsider came to him. The Hunters would be gathering after sundown to discuss their next move and Corvo had needed more time to rest and let the last of his injuries heal. 

One moment, he’d been sleeping in the bed the Hunters had offered to him, the next the Outsider was sitting by his bedside, playing around with a silver tipped arrow in his hands. 

Corvo wasn’t sure what woke him up. The Outsider had made no noise, the Hunters had quieted down for the day and the Lower District around their base was devoid of weepers and beasts alike. He just opened his eyes and found the Outsider sitting there, turning the arrow around while he studied it. 

How the Father of Beasts had been able to enter the tightly guarded Hunter base in the light of the setting sun without being spotted was a mystery too. Corvo highly doubted Daud’s people would’ve been happy to see the Outsider in their midst. And yet, there he was, hiding in the shadows of Corvo’s room, like it was no trouble. 

Corvo watched him press his thumb against the tip of the arrow and prick it. A sliver of black blood ran down his finger and the Outsider watched it with apparent disinterest. 

When he spoke up, he didn’t look at Corvo. 

“It has been ages since Daud was this interesting,” he said. ”Grief has made him unpredictable. He’d assumed you would kill him given the chance. Now that he finds himself alive, he doesn’t know what to do.” The Outsider opened his hand and the arrow rolled down his fingers, clattering to the floor. He stuck his finger into his mouth and licked it clean. “This is going to be interesting to observe. Whether you die in the Tower or save the little Empress, it’ll definitely be a fascinating end to the story.”

A fascinating story. That was all this was to the Outsider. Corvo reached to rub sleep from his eyes. He would’ve much rather been a whole lot less fascinating. It seemed like a hazardous way to live your life. 

The Outsider looked at him. His expression twitched a little. He seemed amused. 

“I doubt you’ll remain interesting much longer,” he said, as if to assure him. He stood up from Corvo’s bedside and looked away. “Either you’re going to die tonight. Or you’ll find a way to survive and live the rest of your days making sure your daughter gets to live in peace. Either way, I doubt it’ll be very interesting. You will not see me after tonight.” 

Corvo looked up at the Outsider. With his hands behind his back, the Outsider turned to give him a glance over his shoulder. 

As much trouble as the Outsider had brought to him, Corvo couldn’t deny that he wouldn’t have survived this long without his help. He was unpredictable and his gift had been a double-edged sword. Still, to hear that after this, he would not be seeing the enigmatic creature woke complicated feelings in his gut. 

The Outsider was someone, some _thing_ , he didn’t fully understand. And to have something like that interested in him and interested in his survival had been an experience not many could claim. 

The Outsider looked at him, his head tilted. It was hard to read him. He showed very little emotion through his expressions, but there was a heavy air of something in the air. 

“Do not try to seek me out afterwards,” he said. “You should not waste time trying to form a bond with something that no longer lives. It will only lead into sorrow.”

Something in his voice was different. It had a weight to it, heavy and cold. None of it translated to his face, though. 

The Outsider looked away and his fingers twitched behind his back. 

“You humans are so short-lived,” he said, his voice melancholic. “You are born, you live meaningless lives and then you die. Only a very rare few of you end up making decisions that change the fate of the future. Only a selected few of you will be remembered generations after you’ve died.” He stood still, faced away from Corvo, but he could not hide away the weight of the world from his voice. “Those of your kind, who’ve tried to bond with me, have quickly realized that compared to me, they are fleeting. Their understanding is lacking.” The Outsider looked at Corvo over his shoulder, black eyes sweeping to him. “I might blink and the next time I would open my eyes, your grandchildren would’ve died from old age. It has driven people mad.” He sighed and turned away again. “So, do not seek me out. I cannot give you what a human can.”

In the following silence, Corvo’s thick swallow sounded loud in his ears. He lifted a hand to his chest, seeking the quiet beats of the Heart. 

When he closed his eyes, the Outsider said: “I wish you luck, Corvo Attano.” And the next time Corvo opened them, he was alone in the room, with no trace of the Outsider’s presence, save for the blood smeared on one of his arrows.

*

Three Hunters had gathered in a room at the top floor of the building they’d turned into their headquarters. Outside, Corvo could see the faintly glowing figures of Hunters going about their businesses. Corvo had counted three, maybe four dozen of them around the building. The Hunters kept their human shapes while outside, but climbing up the stairs, Corvo had seen a handful of wolves resting near each other as if there was nothing wrong with their inhuman forms.

Corvo had wondered how many of the Hunters prowling in the Lower District were a part of Daud’s pack and how many just normal people doing their duty by hunting the mist-born creatures.

There were a lot of Hunters here. The freedom the wolves had to lounge around in their beast forms made it clear that everyone here worked for Daud. So, considering that, Corvo wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the majority of the Hunters were Daud’s to control. 

What a perfect cover for a beast to hide in, he thought. The Hunters were a solitary bunch, and under the church’s command, they could do and go wherever they wanted to. And yet, most of the time, they were down here, out of sight and out of mind. 

Corvo wouldn’t even have been that surprised to find out that Father Campbell had known all along. His churchmen might not have, but the Bishop had held all sorts of heretical secrets. 

Meaning Father Martin might know as well.

Corvo recognized Daud, but the two Hunters with him were masked. He could feel their hidden stares on him when he entered, glad that he’d put on his own mask to hide away from their judgement. 

Daud tossed a vial his way and Corvo cached it easily. 

“Drink up,” he muttered without looking at him. The masked Hunters shared a look between them, but said nothing, soon returning their attention to the map spread out in front of them on a desk. Corvo lifted his mask just enough to drink the vial empty. 

The map was of Dunwall Tower, Corvo realized as he drew closer. The Hunters had made some markings on it already, entry points, guard routes and other security details. Most of the markings on it were old, though. The ink had dried and faded. Looking things over, Corvo could recognize the setup from six months ago. He’d gone over it in his head over and over again in Coldridge. He’d thought about what had gone wrong and what could’ve been done differently. Arrows were pointing at different points on the map, with text next to them, now furiously scribbled over. The original text was still legible in parts, though. 

_Easy entrance_ , it said. _Fewer guards here, blind spot, Empress unguarded._

Corvo ran a tongue over his teeth and shot a look at Daud, who was very clearly avoiding his eyes. His discomfort was palpable, but apparently they only had one map. 

At least the Heart had gone from feeling anger to quiet, petty glee for seeing the assassin so uncomfortable. 

Corvo couldn’t say he felt the same joy. 

“Lord Protector,” one of the masked Hunters greeted him and Corvo recognized his voice as Thomas’. “Good of you to join us. Are you feeling better?”

Corvo gave him a steady, wordless stare. Thomas moved on as if he hadn’t even noticed. 

“We have gathered all our information on Dunwall Tower,” he said. “Some of it is out of date and we’re still waiting for updates on the current guard duties, but it would appear that not that much has changed since our last visit.”

Visit. He called it a visit. Corvo’s fingers curled into fists on the table. Daud cleared his throat and Thomas threw a look his way. 

“All we have to do is get inside, capture the girl – “

Corvo’s gloves creaked from the pressure he was putting on them. 

“ _Rescue_ Lady Emily,” Thomas conceded, “enact any revenge wanted and get out. With the Lord Protector able to approach the Tower from above, this shouldn’t be a difficult mission at all. The Hunters will offer distraction to keep the guards busy.” 

It seemed like a simple plan. Corvo ran a tongue over his teeth. It sounded like the Hunters would put themselves in great risk by doing it. 

And the worst of all, it sounded noisy. People were going to get hurt. 

On the other side of the desk, Daud crossed his arms and shifted back. 

“They think they’ve already won,” he said. “They think that all they got left to worry about is each other, since to them, Corvo Attano is dead, the flying beast is dead and the Hunters were never a problem to begin with. All that’s left for them is to bicker over who gets to reap the biggest rewards.” He lifted his head and looked up at Corvo. “It makes them cocky.”

That was true. Corvo studied the maps. They wouldn’t be on such high alert anymore, not when they thought that all the threats were gone. 

Still. There were many different ways this could go wrong. The guards might have been given silver bullets to take care of the beasts. They might get a lucky shot in, just like before. Emily might get hurt. 

He shot a look at the Hunters around the table. 

Corvo might get double crossed. Again. 

“We can’t expect them to be blind, though,” Thomas said. “If the Admiral is really planning on blackmailing the Viceroy, we might be looking at a full-on revolt in the Tower. The Viceroy will want these Loyalists dead, but the soldiers might take the Admiral’s side. It’s hard to tell yet.”

Which could either work for their advantage, or disadvantage, depending on whether the watchmen would fight each other or join forces to take out the beasts. The Loyalists now had the church behind them as well, since Father Martin had seized control there. 

Great. Just great. Corvo had dug that grave for himself. 

“So, considering this,” Thomas said, drawing Corvo’s attention from his dark thoughts. “My suggestion is: The Lord Protector will approach the Tower from above and enter through the safe room. He will infiltrate and seek out the Empress. Half an hour after that, we will cause a distraction in the courtyard, drawing the attention of the guards away from the skies and giving the Lord Protector and Lady Emily time to escape.”

All eyes were on Corvo. Even though he couldn’t see behind the Hunters’ masks, he could feel their stares on him. Daud was looking as well, arms crossed over his chest. 

They were waiting for his response. 

This was no different from planning guard duties, was it? The officers would bring their plans for Corvo to see and he would give his stamp of approval to them. It was the same thing. 

The only difference was that the killers of the former Empress were now looking at him, waiting for his approval. 

What a twisted situation he’d been dragged into. 

The Hunter whose name Corvo didn’t know shifted with discomfort, looking from Daud to Thomas, then back to Corvo. 

Daud’s brows fell into a deeper frown before he turned to Thomas. 

“Sleep darts and stun mines only,” he said. 

Thomas stared at Daud for a long while as if having a wordless conversation with him. Daud lifted a brow and Thomas sighed. 

“I see,” he said. “That changes things.” He pressed a hand against the map. “Then I’ll gather a different team for the distraction duty. Rulfio is not going to be happy about it.”

“He can die mad, then,” Daud said before turning back to Corvo. “So, how does it sound, Bodyguard? You fine with this plan?”

It was a plan. It would leave Corvo mostly alone on his way to Emily, which could be a good thing. Emily wouldn’t have to see the wolves that had killed her mother. It could also end very poorly for him. One mistake and he would be out. 

And his track record so far wasn’t golden. 

He lifted a hand to his chest and listened carefully. The Heart had nothing to say about it. Either it no longer had the words for it, or it was leaving the decision to him. 

Either way, it was up to Corvo. 

He nodded. 

It was just like the Outsider had said. 

Either he died tonight, or Emily would be saved. 

It was up to him to make sure it was the latter one.

*

It was a cloudy night. Wind from the sea had brought in the mists and they had swallowed the Lower District whole, reaching all the way up to the streets of Commons.

The world seemed so small from up in the cloud line. So insignificant. Corvo couldn’t even see the Hunters anymore. He’d lost sight of them when he’d risen above the Towering District. It didn’t matter. If things went well, he wouldn’t be seeing them at all after this. After tonight, one way or another, he wouldn’t be meeting with the Hunters or their leader. 

Dunwall Tower rose above the city, imposing and powerful. It was a familiar sight that set an ache into his chest, when two hearts beat as one. Below it, he could see the shape of Coldridge prison. The Tower had been close but well out of reach, out of sight the whole time Corvo had been locked up in there. What a mockery it’d been. The Viceroy must’ve found the idea amusing at least. The waste of the Tower ran through the pipes of Coldridge, washing away their filth. 

It was quiet up here. The Tower was the tallest building in all of Dunwall, reaching over everything else. And even above that, was Corvo. Circling around it, Corvo felt a pang of pain in his chest. It took him a moment to realize, that it was his. The Heart was quiet, but his own breath hitched. 

It was all in the past. The comforting days he’d spent here, serving with honor and pride. Watching over Emily and Jessamine. 

He would never have that back. 

But. He could still help to rebuild at least some semblance of balance.

And it all started with Emily. Nothing else mattered. 

At the very top of the Tower, there was a safe room. It was a sizable construct with thick stone walls. With the guards outside on the Tower grounds, in the Tower itself and guarding the safe room, it’d be the last place any would-be conquerors reached. It hadn’t been in great use while Corvo had lived in the Tower, more serving as a possible retreat to have meetings with the ministers and a hiding spot for Emily when she was trying to avoid her tutors. 

Corvo landed on top of it before shifting back to his human form. Only a handful of guards were up here, lazily wandering around the roof. Corvo could see three of them, one inside the safe house itself, two smoking near the edge of the roof. 

“God, it got so cold so suddenly,” one of them said. 

“The Outsider is walking in the Commons tonight,” the other laughed. 

“Shut up!”

Corvo propped their unconscious bodies up between the shelves in the safe room with the third guard, well out of sight, before continuing in. 

It felt completely different to move around the Tower now than it had before. He knew every nook and cranny of this place. It’d been his job to know. But it was a different thing to know where everything was by heart, recognize every painting and statue, than it was to use that knowledge to his advantage while hiding away from prying eyes. 

Following the movements of the guards and servants, Corvo took in the scene. Situated on top of a chandelier just outside the room that had used to be Jessamine’s to sleep in, Corvo dug out a pocket watch Daud had given him before he’d left. It was running down towards the moment the Hunters would start causing a ruckus in the yard. 

He still had a little over twenty minutes until the moment they’d be breaking in. 

He needed to hurry. 

The first thing he did was to enter the Viceroy’s room. 

It had used to belong to the Empress. But since Corvo had been gone, they’d removed every sign of Jessamine ever existing in this space. Her clothes, her notes, the art she’d gathered there to keep her company during the sleepless nights, when she couldn’t get the thoughts of Dunwall’s problems out of her mind, they had all disappeared. The Viceroy had ripped the room bare, leaving behind nothing but empty walls. He’d always been more of a man of simplistic design. The room was cold and empty save for the few necessities. Even the fire had been put out. 

Burrows had sought to erase every last bit of her from the room. 

He wasn’t here. No one was. There were men outside, guarding the empty room, but the Viceroy himself was long gone. 

Corvo turned, about to leave through the balcony to find where the Viceroy was, when he noticed that the Viceroy had brought in a safe to the room. It was a heavy, hefty thing. And it was already open. 

That was a very careless move from the former Spymaster. Corvo slid closer, examining it for some sort of a trap. But no, it seemed like the Viceroy had just forgotten to close it after himself. Corvo found a jewelry box with a Boyle cameo in it, a stack of loose papers and a handful of audiograph slips. 

Nothing too interesting and nothing that would help him to find Emily. All he could really conclude from this was that the Viceroy must’ve left in a hurry. Even then, it was a little weird he would’ve just left the safe open like this. 

It didn’t matter. The Viceroy wasn’t here and neither was Emily. Corvo didn’t have time to stop to ponder about it. So, he left through the balcony he’d entered and went down. 

From the conversation of a pair of guards, he heard that the Viceroy was currently busy having a meeting with the new Bishop and his people in the conference hall. Corvo left the guards knocked out in a cleaning closet and headed towards them. 

When he got there, the whole gang was present. Sitting around a large dining table with a full meal before them was Viceroy Burrows and a handful of carefully selected advisors, people Corvo immediately recognized as his sympathizers. On the other side of the table sat side by side Admiral Havelock, Father Martin and Lord Treavor Pendleton. The only servant in the room was a sourly looking man currently pouring a glass of wine to the already tipsy-looking Lord Pendleton. No guards had been allowed in, but there were many waiting outside, just within earshot. Both the Viceroy and the Admiral had brought their best men to guard them. 

Perched above them on the wooden decorations near the ceiling, Corvo listened in on their bickering. 

“Your claim is outrageous!” the Viceroy said, slamming his hand on the table with enough force to make his wineglass sway. “For the Boyles to unknowingly kidnap Lady Emily? It’s preposterous! You can’t simply say something like that without proof and expect it to carry any weight in the court of law.”

Admiral Havelock offered the man a friendly smile. “Of course not,” he said. “But in the court of public opinion? The regular people of Dunwall might not agree with you, Viceroy. How else do you suppose they’re going to explain to themselves the fact that the kidnapped daughter of our dear, late Empress was found in their questionable care? Now that she has been found, they are going to want answers.” The Admiral’s voice was smarmy and the look in his eyes spoke volumes of his true intentions. 

The butt of the Viceroy’s fork was digging deep into the table. If the Admiral thought he was playing a sly game, he was losing horrendously. Corvo had no doubt that Burrows was already planning for his untimely demise as well. 

“However,” he continued jovially, “I’m sure there _could_ be another explanation for it. Perhaps the Boyles _weren’t_ working alone. The rumors Lord Pendleton has shared with me about the affairs of the Boyles make me think this whole matter might’ve gone a lot deeper than it seems on the outside. Although, I very much doubt you would like to entertain such ideas.”

The Viceroy’s face was pasty and pale from the strain he was putting on it. His mouth was nothing but a thin line and his eyes were blown wide. He was catching the Admiral’s hints alright. On both his sides, his advisors were looking at him with worry and expectations. 

If the trio of Loyalists wouldn’t come up with a way to get rid of him soon enough, Corvo doubted any of them would be long for the world after this. 

Moving along the ledges up near the ceiling line, Corvo studied the people below. Lord Pendleton kept waving at his manservant to fill his glass, but the way he kept draining I right after meant there was no rest for the poor man. On his left, Admiral Havelock looked like he was exactly where he thought he should be and he was enjoying belittling the Viceroy. And sitting left of him, was Father Martin. _Bishop_ Martin now, Corvo supposed, staring glumly at his untouched meal. 

“I suppose that would make sense. Either way,” Viceroy Burrows said, attempting to put pleasantness into his voice and failing miserably, “the young future empress is finally safe and sound and _you three_ will be hailed as heroes for a long time to come. I assure you that the Boyles will be punished for their crimes if what you say is true, and you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts. I’m sure the Empire will remember all our names long after you’re gone.”

Corvo needed to get one of them alone. The Viceroy would be the best candidate. He would know where Emily was being kept, surely. But the others might as well. It’d be foolish of them not to know where each piece was on the board if they were playing to win. 

He supposed he might be able to take them out. He was all alone, but he had the element of surprise. If he shifted, they might not even be able to hurt him. It was doubtful they still carried silver bullets with them. 

Maybe. 

Lord Pendleton was no fighter, Corvo was sure. With the state he was in, he couldn’t be trusted to hold a pistol, much less protect himself with it. The manservant and the advisors would be similarly disadvantaged. The Viceroy had always been keener on letting others do his fighting _for_ him. He might’ve known how to defend himself once upon a time, but false confidence had made him reliant on his guards. 

The people Corvo worried about were the Bishop and the Admiral. They knew how to fight and the Admiral had one hell of an aim on his side. 

He could throw a can of chokedust there… Stir them up a little…

But how much time would it take? And if _one_ of them fired their gun, it would alert every guard in the Tower to the presence of an intruder. And that would put everything in lockdown. 

Corvo gave a look at the clock. Fourteen minutes. 

He bit his teeth together. He didn’t have time to sit around twiddling his thumbs. Once the distraction would start, all hell would break loose. 

Lord Pendleton stood up suddenly, his chair creaking against the hardwood floor. 

“Excuse me, gentlemen, this conversation is intriguing, no doubt, but I must take a leak.”

Father Martin tried to bite back his groan, but if Corvo was able to hear it from his heights, the others must’ve as well. Lord Pendleton swayed on his feet and his servant moved to help him stay upright, but the Lord shoved him back, hissing at him to keep his distance. 

“I am Lord _Treavor Pendleton!_ The head of the _Pendleton family!_ And I’m _perfectly_ capable of standing on my _own two feet_ , Wallace,” he complained, although his actions spoke against his words. He leaned a heavy hand on the table to keep him upright for a moment, before huffing and walking out of the hall

Corvo wasn’t going to be getting a better opportunity than this. He followed after the nobleman and his servant. A pair of guards joined them, no doubt to make sure they wouldn’t stray from their path and start snooping around. 

It was easy to separate the guards from each other while Lord Pendleton busied himself in the bathroom. A sudden, small crash nearby had one of the guards investigating. A dropdown knocked out another guard and a sleep dart took care of the manservant. 

Lord Pendleton didn’t even have time to scream before Corvo had slammed his palm on his mouth and shoved him back into the bathroom. 

The poor Lord sniveled and squirmed, but couldn’t remove himself from Corvo’s hold. Corvo lifted a blade to his throat and held it there until Lord Pendleton swallowed down his whimpers, eyes wide as saucers. 

“Please,” he whimpered when Corvo moved his hand from his mouth to his throat. “I don’t have anything! I don’t have money! I have _nothing!_ ”

He was an idiot. Corvo gritted his teeth together. He didn’t care about his family’s money or status. There was only one thing he was in here for and if Lord Pendleton had two braincells to rub together, he could’ve realized that. But instead he whimpered and coughed in Corvo’s hold. 

There was no way the others would’ve let a man like him know where Emily was anyway. Corvo shoved the knocked-out guards and the servant with Lord Pendleton’s unconscious body and closed the door behind him. 

And when he turned around, he came face to face with Father Martin’s pistol. 

“You don’t die easy, do you?” he asked. 

Corvo froze, his hands caught up at his sides. 

“Yes,” Father Martin said, “they’re silver bullets.”

Of course they were. Corvo breathed out a harsh huff and forced his hands back down. He waited for Father Martin to make his move. 

Neither of them as much as twitched for a moment. 

At length, Father Martin sighed deep and sagged down, but the pistol remained pointed a Corvo. 

“I take it you’re here for Lady Emily?” he said. “You thought the third time would be the charm, didn’t you? I’m starting to think the Outsider didn’t curse you, but _me_. This would seem just like the type of a game he would play.”

Behind his mask, Corvo looked around. If he was quick, he might be able to knock the pistol off Father Martin’s hand before he had time to fire it. But the man _would_ fire, meaning that everyone in the Tower would be able to hear it. And without the Hunters outside keeping the guards busy, they would be swarmed in moments. And that was _if_ Corvo managed to dodge the silver bullet and _wouldn’t_ be shot dead the moment he moved. 

Father Martin wasn’t even looking at him anymore, but glaring at the floor between them. He twisted his mouth, a look of displeasure playing across in his features. And he still made no move to fire the pistol. 

Slowly, Corvo straightened his back. 

Father Martin wasn’t firing. 

Corvo ran a tongue over his teeth, considering things. Slowly, he breathed in. 

“Let me go,” he said. 

Father Martin jumped as if electrocuted and stared at Corvo with large eyes. Slowly, very slowly the pistol went down. 

Father Martin didn’t look at him, when he spoke, instead choosing a spot near the wall to stare at. “They’re keeping her locked up in the Viceroy’s room,” he said. “There are guards outside the doors at all times, but I would guess that someone with your abilities would have no trouble getting in through the balcony.”

The Viceroy’s room? Corvo frowned. 

Father Martin was lying. Corvo had just been there and there’d been no sign of Emily. 

His hand twitched towards his sword. 

He didn’t have time to draw it, however, before the approaching steps of three people drew his attention. Thinking fast, Corvo shifted to fly on top of a chandelier above them just as the Viceroy appeared from behind a corner, flanked by guards. 

“Is there a problem here?” he demanded. 

Father Martin blinked a few times but didn’t look at Corvo’s way. 

“Lord Pendleton has passed out in the bathroom,” he said. 

Viceroy Burrows clicked his tongue. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “The absolute _madness_ and _audacity._ ”

“Be kind with him,” Father Martin said, gaining back some confidence. “The recent times haven’t been kind on his family either. And with the allegations towards his brothers, he has found himself as the temporary head of the house. It’s quite the change.”

The Viceroy narrowed his eyes. 

“I care little about his problems. I have a whole _country_ to run, Bishop. Surely _you_ of all people understand.”

Father Martin was escorted back to the conference hall and neither the guards nor the Viceroy stopped to wonder what had happened to the people who’d been with Lord Pendleton when he’d passed out. 

With that, Corvo considered his next move. 

Father Martin was a snake in disguise. But when he’d spoken, he’d looked defeated. 

Why would he lie to Corvo? To get him caught? 

Corvo had been to the Viceroy’s room, he knew Emily wasn’t there. 

And yet. There was something strange going on in here. 

He took off back towards the room, flying over the entrance hall to reach the balcony again. And just like before, all he found was the empty bedroom. Looking around through his gifted vision, the only signs of life were outside. He counted four guards in total. 

But there were no people in the room next to the Viceroy’s. The two rooms were connected by a fireplace, but that fireplace had gone cold hours ago, it seemed. 

Corvo approached it slowly and leaned to take a look through. 

And there, on the floor on the other side of the fireplace, he could see sooty foot- and handprints.

Corvo was gripped by mixed feelings of pride and worry. Of course they couldn’t keep her locked up in a cage for long. He’d taught her better than that. She’d thought it was _fun_ to sneak out and cause anxiety to her tutors and guards. She’d considered it a game to go against the rules.

But that also meant that Corvo still had no idea where she could be. And he had four minutes until the Hunters would enter the courtyard. 

He hurried out through the balcony and to the hallway on the other side of the opening to get to the room where Emily’s tiny footprints lead in to the hallway on the other side. She’d gotten past the guards and snuck through the hallways. The sooty footprints grew fainter and fainter before disappearing completely. 

But now Corvo had a clearer idea where she might’ve gone to. He picked up his pace, running off towards Jessamine’s secret room. It was a room hidden behind a fireplace that could be opened by twisting a lamp on a wall close by. None of the servants, guards or advisors had known about it. It’d been Jessamine’s own little corner, where she could retreat to when all the stresses of running an Empire got to her. Corvo had always known she would be safe in there, but no one else would’ve known to go there to get her. 

Corvo was running through the hallways. He knew the guards could hear him and they’d come looking for the source of the footsteps soon enough, but he didn’t care. The clock was ticking and they only had so much time before all hell would break loose. And lo and behold, the lamp next to the fireplace had tiny black handprints on it. 

But the secret room was empty as well. 

Emily had been there recently. She’d entered and left and closed the door after her. But there were no longer any signs of her to be seen. Corvo tried not to let the fear get to him, but his hands were getting sweaty. 

Where could she have possibly gone to? He looked around the room, head swiveling from side to side. There was an audiograph player on the desk, with handprints on it. There was a single audiograph slip on the desk, with Emily’s name written on it, and it too was covered in soot, but the player itself was without a recording. 

That was when he heard it. The loudspeakers of the Tower’s interior cracking on and a booming voice playing through. 

Instead of the usual voice of the Propaganda Officer, though, it was a far younger speaker that came through. 

“ _This is Empress Emily Kaldwin speaking!_ ” Her voice trembled a little, but Emily’s confidence helped to drown it out.. “ _I am currently being held in the Dunwall Tower against my will by Viceroy Burrows, a man who conspired against the Empire and had my mother, Jessamine Kaldwin assassinated! He… he condemned Lord Protector, Corvo Attano to death for a crime he did not commit and took control of the Empire! And I have proof!_ ”

Oh. Clever girl. Silly, _stupid_ , clever girl. Corvo was running towards the broadcasting center even before her voice was switched to that of the Viceroy talking about how he’d thought putting a curse of undeath on the Lower District would help get rid of the jobless and homeless. She was Jessamine’s girl through and through and it was going to get her killed!

She was doing a great work exposing the Viceroy to the whole of Dunwall, but she was also making herself out to be expendable. 

Corvo needed to reach her before Burrows would. 

That was when the warnings started to blare outside. Corvo’s own heart jumped to his throat at the sound of it. Below on the ground floor, guards were running towards the entrance, meaning that the Hunters must’ve made their presence known. 

Corvo spotted the Viceroy out with the Admiral and Bishop near the stairs to the broadcasting tower. 

“What in seven blazes is going on out there _now?_ ” Viceroy Burrows demanded. 

“The wolves are attacking again!” his guard said. “They… they took out the tower of light and they’re attacking our men outside!”

“ _What?_ ” the Viceroy yelped. “But why would they – ?”

“I think that’s the least of your problems right now, Burrows,” Admiral Havelock said, lifting his pistol and aiming it at the man. The guards who’d been rushing past him to get to the yard stopped and turned to look, uncertain who they should’ve been helping. 

“Arrest that man!” Emily Kaldwin shouted. Standing with her back straight in the stairway to the tower, she pointed a trembling finger at Viceroy Burrows. “Your Empress commands you!”

“My thoughts exactly,” the Admiral said, smiling wide. “In the name of the Empress, the old and the new, and in the name of the Crown, Viceroy Burrows, you are under arrest!”

The Admiral’s men followed his example immediately. The guards followed suit a moment later. 

A loud crash from below had them all looking down to the front entrance, where the wolves had broken in to the Tower. That was the noise that drew the Admiral’s attention to Corvo, perched on top of the chandelier, over the chaos below. The yelp he let out was high-pitched and undignified. 

“Kill the Lord Protector!” he shouted, pointing at Corvo. 

Corvo dropped off from the chandelier to another one below him just as they fired their guns. The bullets grazed him, tearing into the thick Hunter’s jacket and the skin underneath. But they weren’t silver. The burn wasn’t as strong. 

He didn’t have time to think about it. He fell ungraciously to the ground floor and immediately got caught by one of the wolves and hauled off out of sight. 

Daud threw him to the ground all too unkindly and shifted back into his human form, snarling at him. 

“What the hell are you still doing in here?” he demanded. “Get the girl and leave!”

Corvo gritted his teeth. He was still working on it, clearly. Rude bastard. Now he had to climb all the way up again. He reached to pat at the bloody wound on his arm. 

“Keep them busy!” Daud barked at one of the wolves close by, a wolf missing two fingers. “And then get the hell out of here.”

The wolf nodded and turned to lead a group back towards the yard again. Corvo started making his way back up. 

Both the Admiral’s men and Emily were gone by the time he reached the third floor. He looked around wildly only for Daud to appear again. 

“They went up to the safe room,” he said. “That’s where the smell is at its strongest. Go! Hurry up and get it done so we can leave this place!”

Corvo didn’t need to be told twice. He ran up the same way he’d come in. Two guards were waiting for him with their pistols raised, but Corvo had no time for them. The sleep darts were enough to knock them out for now, but Corvo was starting to run low. He only had two more to go and then he’d be out. He barred the door behind him. 

On the rooftop, he caught up to the Admiral and his company. He was dragging Emily by her arm while she did her best to dig her heels into the slippery ground. 

“No!” she shouted. “You don’t get to lock me up again!”

“Now, now, my dear,” Admiral Havelock said. “I understand, the night has been long and rough. You’re feeling hysterical. Rest now and let the adults handle the situation.”

“ _No!_ ” she shouted. “I don’t trust you! You’re no better than the Viceroy! Corvo! Corvo!”

The Admiral had with him three of his men and Father Martin. 

That was three people more than Corvo had darts for. Three people, armed with pistols and swords. 

He looked around, trying to find something he could use to his advantage, but his head was ringing empty and his heart beating loud. 

“I am your _Empress!_ ” Emily said. “You can’t do this! Arrest him!”

“You’re no ruler yet, girl. You’re a child and you will have to let adults deal with situations beyond you. There are beasts running loose in the Tower and you need to be kept safe.”

“But Corvo was there! You said so! You said Corvo was there! Let me go!”

“You misheard me,” he said, annoyance leaking into his voice. He sounded like he was about done with this nonsense. 

Three guards. Martin and Havelock.

Five people. He had one can of chokedust on him and two darts. 

It was going to have to do. 

From the stairway, he threw the can at them. The arc was perfect, hitting one of the guards on his head before going off and filling the rooftop with gas and dust. The guards yelled out in surprise and that was all Corvo needed. 

The two darts found their marks on the guards’ arm and shoulder. Running and sliding towards the men, Corvo managed to kick the feet from under another guard and knocked his head on the ground with enough force to stop him for a moment. Then, he sprung at the closest person still confused by the dust and shot a regular arrow at their leg. Father Martin cried out in pain, momentarily preoccupied and Corvo moved to get him into a headlock before the smoke cleared. 

“Well, well, well,” Admiral Havelock said, his voice hoarse from the dust, but his pistol still pointed steadily at Corvo’s way. “Corvo Attano. You are a remarkably difficult person to get rid of.”

Corvo’s breath was thundering in his ears. He held Father Martin close to him, a human shield between him and the Admiral. He could hardly believe he’d succeeded. Father Martin gave a few halfhearted struggles but couldn’t rip free unless he wanted to risk getting his throat sliced. Corvo held his crossbow aimed at the Admiral, but they were at an impasse. 

“Corvo?” Emily asked. “Is that you?”

The Admiral yanked her back, pulling her close to use _her_ as a protective shield. Behind the mask, Corvo bared his teeth. 

“First the wolves,” Havelock said, “then Burrows and Campbell and now _I_ have underestimated you. What an embarrassing mistake to make. And I’d seen how easily you shirked off your supposed deaths over and over again. I’ll make sure not to make the same mistake again.”

Father Martin reached for the arm Corvo had put around his throat and gave it an experimental tug. Corvo responded by tightening his hold and making the man gasp for air. 

“What did you think you were going to accomplish by coming back here?” the Admiral asked, spreading his free arm to wave at the roof around them. “The Viceroy has now been dealt with. Without your help, I might add. He’ll get a public execution and the people will cheer the next Viceroy for it. Dunwall has been liberated from his tyranny and the future empress is safe. There’s nothing more for you to do.”

Emily kept squirming in his hold, but his hand on her shoulder kept her still. 

“Your job here is done, Lord Protector,” he continued. “The person you swore to protect is dead. There’s nothing more in here for you.”

“Corvo!” Emily called, reaching her hands towards him, only to have the Admiral hiss at her to stay quiet and yank her back with more force. Corvo made a halted move as if he was going to stab Father Martin if the Admiral touched her further. 

The Admiral laughed at him. 

“Oh, Martin?” he said. “You really think I care if he gets hurt or not? At this point? Kill him for all I care! We’ve all done wicked things. None of us is free of sin, least of all good Bishop here. Maybe it would be for the best to wipe us all out and start from a clean slate. Maybe that would save the city. Maybe then the Outsider would show us some mercy.”

“Admiral!” Father Martin spluttered. 

Havelock just laughed and stared backing away from them. From behind him, Corvo could hear knocking on the door he’d just come through and looking at it with his vision, he could see guards trying to break through. 

“It’s over, Corvo,” the Admiral said, grinning wide. “Honestly, I have nothing against you. This isn’t personal. But we’ll see if a lead bullet will hurt a witch in its human form.”

Before he could pull the trigger, though, Emily suddenly kicked her foot back hard, hitting his ankle. She had a mean kick, Corvo knew that from personal experience and it caught the Admiral by surprise. His shot flew well past them and his hold on Emily grew lax. She dived down and out of the way and Corvo shoved Father Martin off him. 

He realized only in a faraway feeling that the arrow he’d just fired was the one the Outsider had dirtied with his blood. He saw the dry, black blood on its tip just as it flew free of the crossbow. Behind the Admiral, the door crashed open. The guards rushed in just as the arrow found its target on the Admiral’s pistol hand. 

The effect was immediate. From the spot where the arrow had sunken into the Admiral’s flesh, black scales sprouted into existence. The Admiral yelled out in surprise and he dropped the pistol. His voice broke into gurgles as his human skin fell from him. 

The guards saw a beast and that was all they needed to know. Their bullets wouldn’t break through the thick, fishlike scales covering the Admiral. He backed away from them, yelling at them, fish-like eyes rolling back in his head. His mouth could no longer produce words, though, too stiff and formless for it. 

From behind the guards, Corvo could see Daud. While the guards were busy shooting at the beast before them, he calmly loaded a silver arrow into his wristbow and aimed it at the Admiral. 

Daud was a good shot. Corvo hardly had time to lift his hand when the arrow had already sunken into the neck of what had used to be the Admiral and by the time Corvo turned to look, Daud had disappeared already. 

The Admiral fell to his knees, gasping as blood poured from his wound. He wasn’t dead yet, though. Corvo marched to his side and yanked the arrow free, then kicked him down. Then he turned to Father Martin. 

The man jumped at the attention. He took half a step back, his mouth a thin line. 

Corvo pointed at the Admiral. 

The Bishop didn’t seem to understand his wordless sign. Corvo growled in frustration, then forced the words out of his mouth. 

“Do. Your. Job.”

Father Martin opened his mouth, then closed it. Then, he turned to the guards. 

“Capture the beast,” he said. “It will be taken to the Abbey for questioning.”

Good. That would take care of that. Corvo turned to face the guards and got tackled by a sobbing, ten-year-old girl. 

“Corvo!” Emily cried out. “It really is you!” She latched onto his stomach like a leech, holding tight like she was never planning on letting go. 

And to be quite honest, Corvo didn’t mind that one bit. He reached to remove his mask and knelt down in front of her. She looked devastated to see the amount of damage the last six months had done to him and her eyes grew watery before she buried her face into the crook of his neck. Corvo reached a hand to pat her head, becoming slowly aware of just how much he was trembling in her hold. He wasn’t really sure which one of them shook worse. The guards surrounded them, confused by the sudden appearance of the man most had thought dead already. Emily seemed wholly disinterested in them, rubbing her teary, snotty face to the shoulder of Corvo’s jacket. 

He held her tight. In his chest, the Heart whispered a weak: _Emily…_ before going quiet again. 

It was the last thing it ever said to Corvo.

*

Corvo had had trouble sleeping for the past couple of weeks.

After what the people had started to call the Outsider’s attack on Dunwall Tower, things had been crazy. With advisors, ministers and church official buzzing about the Tower, there was hardly a moment of peace for anyone involved. For Corvo, though, it’d been a soothing return to norm. 

After the former Viceroy’s arrest and the following interrogations, Corvo had been cleared of all charges. And, since not many people had known Corvo to be the winged beast, the church hadn’t yet come after him with allegations of witchcraft yet. 

Well. Father Martin knew. 

Corvo wasn’t sure what to think of that. 

He paced the room he shared with Emily restlessly. His chest felt hollow and if he stayed still too long, the ache from the cold lump next to his heart got too strong. 

After the madness of that night, Corvo had been staying with Emily in Jessamine’s old room. There were full plans on renovating the safe room on the roof into a room for the Empress in the future, but for now Emily would stay here and Corvo would keep an eye on her. 

He’d never liked Jessamine’s bed. It was far too soft. He’d had a room of his own not too far out of reach. Rare had been the nights, when he’d shared Jessamine’s bed with her and they’d never been nights he’d cherished dearly. His love for her had been great, but the ways he’d shared that with her had been quiet. 

Sometimes he found himself regretting that. Mourning what they’d had and had been lost. But neither of them wouldn’t have been happy, if they couldn’t have been their true selves. 

Now the idea of sleeping on her bed, on a bed they’d shared, on a bed her murderer had slept after her, made him feel sick. Even after months of sleeping in abandoned houses, it didn’t feel right. 

The bed was too soft. And it no longer smelled right. 

So, instead, Emily got the bed and Corvo tried to sleep on one of the armchairs brought in after Burrows’ departure. It was better that way, although Corvo was finding that his age was catching up to him and he could no longer expect to sleep a whole night upright in a chair and not feel the consequences in the morning. 

Even still. He was having trouble falling asleep on most nights. 

There was an ache in his chest that had been growing stronger lately. A cold weight where there should’ve been none. 

The Heart had been quiet ever since that day. Corvo had attempted to reach out to it a couple of times, but there was never a response. 

Sighing to himself, Corvo turned to look at Emily. She was tucked tight into bed, her hair still drying from her bath and messy on the pillow around her. She had Mrs. Pilsen, her doll in her arms, held tight to her chest. 

She’d been so relieved to find the doll unharmed. 

In her sleep, Emily looked so peaceful. While she was awake, Corvo could see the effects the last eight months had had on her as well. She’d be thinking about what had happened for a long time to come. For now, though, her worry manifested in a need to have Corvo within eyesight at all times. When she spoke to her advisors about the coming changes, she held tight onto Corvo’s hand. When Father Martin’s church officials came to talk to her ministers, she hid half-way behind his back. 

Emily was scared and he knew it. He couldn’t blame her for it either. 

Things like that left a mark. 

All Corvo could do now was to make sure that the mark would fade in time. She was going to be safe and Corvo would do whatever it took to make sure of that. 

He stood up from his seat and walked to Emily’s bedside. He ran a hand over her head, sorting out some of her hair. Then, he reached to plant a kiss on the top of her head before walking out of the room. 

He nodded his head at the two Hunters guarding her door outside. One of them lifted a fist missing a few fingers to his chest in a salute. 

Captain Curnow, the man currently responsible for the guards in the Tower had been perplexed, when Corvo had demanded for Hunters to be brought to guard the Empress. He hadn’t said anything outright about it, but Corvo could see the man trying to hide his displeasure. 

It was fine. Corvo didn’t really like it either, but he was currently still unsure who he could trust within the Tower walls and who not. With Hunters at least, he knew where they stood. 

He had seen neither hide nor hair of Daud since he’d shot the Admiral. The Lower District was still quarantined off, even though they were now actively working to clear out the streets, so Corvo had no idea if Daud’s Hunters still resided in the same building he’d slept in for a few nights. 

All he knew was that they no longer wished to do any harm to the Kaldwin family and if that meant they would also offer their protection, Corvo would use them for the time being. Maybe things would change once things calmed down a little. They would deal with it when the time was right. For now, though, he knew he could trust the Hunters to keep Emily safe. 

Corvo held a calm pace walking around the third floor of the Tower. Then, he descended down to the second. He looked at the paintings on the walls, ran a hand over the wooden paneling like Jessamine had sometimes done and listened carefully to the sounds his shoes made on the floors. There was a nostalgic feeling to it. He tried to focus on it. 

If he focused hard enough, he could almost feel her walking by his side. Like she was waiting for him to make sure that everything was safe, even though the Tower was supposed to be one of the most secure places in Dunwall. 

The Heart remained unmoving in his chest. 

As he’d been sure it would. 

Still. The sigh that escaped his throat was a disappointed one. 

Corvo made his way down the stairs to the Tower’s ground level. A handful of guards were making their rounds, but most of the other staff had gone to bed a long time ago. A handful of the guards shot him weary looks. He might’ve looked a lot better than he had when he’d first been rushed to see the Tower’s doctors. Malnutrition, mistreated wounds and his unwashed state had made him look like he was half a step away from death. These days, he was starting to pass for a healthy person already. But a man skulking around dark hallways with a feathered cloak was going to make any watchman worth his occupation wary. 

“Good evening, Lord Attano,” one of them greeted him, when he made his way out through the door. 

Corvo nodded his head in response. 

It was a beautiful night outside. The sky was clear and if it hadn’t been for the bright lights around the Tower, he might’ve even been able to see the stars. 

Maybe if he’d taken flight and risen above the Tower, he might’ve seen them more clearly. 

But with each passing day, he found the idea of shifting less and less appealing. 

Same way, he’d noticed his hunger waning. Thoughts of blood no longer made his throat itch with unquenched thirst. 

He lifted a hand to his chest and scratch at it absentmindedly. 

Maybe it had something to do with the receding mists. He heard that the Royal Physician had started to work with some no-name tinkerer who had his lab on some more influential family’s attic. Apparently their intellects combined had helped them develop fog condensers that had shown promising signs of reducing the mists from the seas. 

Maybe there was something to that. Or maybe the mists just came and went on the whims of the Outsider. Who knew? 

The important thing was that with the mists far less powerful, the watchmen had been able to offer their aid to the Hunters in driving back the undead weepers. In the Abbey Father Martin was working hard with his people to find out how exactly they could deal with the curse Burrows and Campbell had raised, so they could put the dead to rest for good. And after that, he’d announced, he’d be stepping down as a Bishop. According to him, the harsh actions required from a wartime Bishop would not suit the church in times of peace. He said the church needed some reworking on the inside to find its balance again. Corvo didn’t really care about his reasons or excuses. As long as Father Martin would step down on his own accord, Corvo wouldn’t have to intervene. And Father Martin seemed perfectly content on doing just that. 

They’d built a memorial for Jessamine in the gazebo outside. It was a simple thing, just like she would’ve wanted. A stone plaque with her name on it, and the blue and yellow banners with the Kaldwin family’s swan crest on them hanging from above. 

It was a simple, tasteful little memorial. 

It failed to take away the empty feeling in Corvo’s chest when he sat down next to it. 

He’d never been one for words. Even with Jessamine, when it’d been just the two of them, he hadn’t been a big talker. It’d been easier to let Jessamine do the talking. She’d been good at it. She _liked_ talking and he’d liked listening to her. 

But there had been moments, in the dead of the night, when they’d been alone and the world had seemed like a too big of a place. 

He’d never really sang, but there’d been old Serkonian songs he could remember hearing on the streets. Songs his mother had sang to him and his sister. Corvo couldn’t remember the words. They wouldn’t have mattered anyway. 

What he remembered were the melodies. 

They came to him slowly. Quiet humming, half-formed songs taking shape. His throat felt tight, but he hummed them anyway. 

The heart remained quiet through them all. 

It didn’t matter. Corvo kept going. For her, but for himself as well. He sniffed when it got too much, but continued until he’d worked through them all. 

Then, he breathed out a long sigh and looked past the pillars and flags to the open sky. 

This high up, there were no other buildings to block out the sky. With the Tower behind him, Corvo had an unobstructed view of the empty void of space before him. He closed his eyes and turned to the tombstone. 

Slowly, he reached to unclasp his cloak. He removed it from his shoulders and folded it in half, then placed it next to the plaque. 

Removing the cloak was like lifting a literal weight off his shoulders. In both good and bad. His chest felt lighter, like more than the cloak had been removed. But at the same time, he felt vulnerable. Weak. Like he could crumple where he sat. 

Like he was frail enough for the winds to carry away. 

Which he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. He was the Lord Protector to Empress Emily Kaldwin and he was strong enough to protect her from any danger that might come her way. 

But at the same time, he could feel how the effects of the passing year had hollowed him out. It would take a long time for him to start feeling okay again. 

And this was going to have to be the first step. 

The dawn was fast approaching. Slowly a band of light appeared in the horizon. Corvo watched it growing brighter and wider. 

He really should be going back in. Emily wouldn’t like it if she woke up and he wasn’t there. He sighed and stood up. 

There was a different sort of ache in his chest. Like a cavity had opened up there. 

Healing took time. Corvo still found himself startling at the slightest of sounds and reaching for his word when he heard steps outside Emily’s room. 

It would take a long time before he could start feeling safe without his feathered skin. But he knew it had to be done. He knew he couldn’t continue living relying on the Outsider’s gift. That was what drove people into madness. He had to make do with his own strength and be there for Emily when she needed him. 

He’d failed Jessamine. But he would not fail their daughter. 

Corvo turned to face the sunrise. It stung his eyes and he had to hide away from its glare, but the warmth brought life to his skin. He breathed in a sigh. It was going to be a long day. A long year. Hell, the whole next decade would be a tiring time. It would take a lot of hard work to get Dunwall running again, but Corvo was going to be there to stand behind Emily’s decisions every step of the way. 

He gave one final nod at the memorial plaque and turned back to the Tower. Before he could leave, though, he heard something stirring behind him. 

Sitting on the memorial plaque for Empress Jessamine Kaldwin, was a feathered beast. The black swan regarded him with calm eyes and Corvo couldn’t find it in himself to be scared when it reached its long, delicate neck towards him. 

Corvo stood still. His breath caught in his throat. Very lightly, the swan brushed its beak against his cheek, before turning around and spreading its wings, wide enough to reach from one end of the gazebo to the other. With a few powerful strikes it pushed off the ground and flew over the edge of the fence between the Imperial District and the sheer drop to the districts below. 

Corvo rushed to the fence just in time to see the swan disappear over the ocean. 

His hand flew to his chest, but he could no longer feel the Heart’s presence there. 

For a moment, he just stood there. Slowly, the sun rose over the sea and painted everything in warm tones. His hands fell to his sides and he breathed easy. 

He hoped she would find peace on her own terms. He had done his best and it was out of his hands now. His responsibility was for the living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading my little fic! I hope you liked it!


End file.
